"It's the height and what's in the water below and the way you fall (that make it dangerous)," he said. "Jumping off that height could end up in a fatality," Mr Hansen said. Three months later a 15-year-old girl was taken by helicopter to hospital. In 1995 a Whakatane man wearing jeans died after jumping. Yesterday was not the first time emergency services have been called to the bridge. The girl was taken by ambulance to Tauranga Hospital where she was treated in the Emergency Department before being released. The girl appeared visibly shaken and upset and told a family friend assisting with her rescue that "she just wanted to go home". "The initial call probably indicated that she had a back injury but by the time we got out there we found that she had a minor leg injury," he said. ``We've been to a previous jumper off the bridge who's now paralysed so she's (Vanessa) pretty lucky really," Mr Hansen said. A sign on the bridge warns that people who jump could die.
However, he warned that jumping from the bridge could result in paralysis or death. Tauranga St John team manager Ken Hansen said once she was examined, it was established the teen had suffered only a minor leg injury. Firefighters from Tauranga and Greerton worked with Tauranga St John staff to carry the girl on a stretcher off the rocks to an ambulance waiting in the carpark. She told those at the bottom her legs were numb. Family members said the girl hit the water on her knees. Despite warnings from her mother, Vanessa Hughes, who was with a family group visiting from Auckland, decided to follow a group of boys and jump off the bridge shortly before 3.30pm. A 13-YEAR-OLD girl who jumped off the bridge at McLaren Falls Park yesterday initially thought she had been paralysed, sparking fresh fears that someone could die making the 12m leap.
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