Couple’s chilling last act before plummeting 300ft to their death in bungee jump horror
WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT A couple’s dream of bungee jumping together ended in tragedy just moments after they made their final phone call to beg for one last jump.
Alberto had experience with heights, but it was Tiziana’s first bungee jump
An engaged couple met their tragic fate just hours after making a phone call which led to a shocking accident in Italy.Alb erto Galletti, 25, and Tiziana Accora, 26, were travelling when they reached the Ponte Canale bridge near the town of Polino, about 60 miles north of Rome, on the evening of May 1, 2002.
They shared a dream of bungee jumping and had found a place to do so, on camera, together. Alberto was a serving paratrooper with experience of high-risk jumps and sports involving heights. Tiziana, on the other hand, was excited to tackle her first-ever bungee jump.
But the couple soon realised they would be late, and the Polino Bungee Jumping Centre would already be closed by the time they got there. As a last attempt, the couple rang the company, pleading for workers to keep the centre open. Site manager Lorenzo Illuminati agreed to stay behind and wait for them.
The couple called the company, begging for them to stay open for longer(Image: Getty Images)
Recalling the moment to state television in the aftermath, he said: “I had actually closed when they called. They begged me to stay open, so I waited for them.”
Just an hour earlier, another couple had completed the same jump that Alberto and Tiziana later did, so nothing seemed especially dangerous, Illuminati added.
But when Alberto and Tiziana leapt from the 100-metre-high bridge, wrapped in each other’s arms, the cord failed to do its job.
Instead of springing back skyward, the pair plunged the full 330ft to the canyon floor below.
As was standard practice at the centre, the jump was being filmed – footage meant to be kept as a souvenir of the activity. Instead, it captured the couple’s final moments.
The couple jumped off the bridge together and plummeted to their deaths (stock image)(Image: iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus)
“They jumped off together in each other’s arms, and then this happened. It’s terrible,” said Illuminati.
Following the accident, while a full investigation was carried out, the Polino Bungee Jumping Centre was shut down.
Initial theories suggested the cord supporting the couple would have snapped, since two people jumping together would place far greater strain on the equipment than a single jumper.
Terni police spokesman Lieutenant Rovaldi Di Marco said: “From what I know, it should have been able to cope with a combined weight of 2,000kg, so, in theory, it should have been okay. However, that is one aspect we will be looking at, as well as the safety clips that are harnessed into the structure of the bridge, or maybe it was a human error – it is still too early to say.”
Later, investigators concluded that the tragedy was caused by a catastrophic equipment failure rather than by the cord itself snapping.
Di Marco said: “The cord was found intact, and before the couple, a man of 90kg jumped off the bridge.”
