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CANCÚN, Mexico () — A horrifying accident caught on video during a trip to Mexico has left a Los Angeles makeup artist with critical injuries and in desperate need of help to return home.
It started as a fun birthday trip to Mexico and ended in a terrifying and life-threatening accident that has left the 29-year-old hospitalized and struggling to figure out when and how she will be able to come back home to Los Angeles.
Nina Bakhshizadeh’s terrifying fall was captured on camera by her own cellphone. She landed 22 feet below a wooden bridge in the Mexican jungle.
“I was awake the whole time. You know how you sleep sometimes, and you fall in your dream, and you wake up? It was like that,” Bakhshizadeh said in a Zoom interview from her hospital bed. “When I fell, like, it was the longest and the shortest fall of my life.”
She’s now in a hospital in Cancún, where she’s recovering from emergency back surgery.
The 29-year-old, her boyfriend and family members were all celebrating her birthday when the trip took a life-threatening turn.
It happened on Sunday as Bakhshizadeh was riding an ATV with her boyfriend on a guided tour.
“His tire got stuck to the wire of the bridge… and then we flipped, the car flipped. My boyfriend got stuck in the wire. But I fell down off the bridge,” Bakhshizadeh recalled. “I was asking all the gods I knew to give me another chance. I could feel the pain, so I knew that there was something wrong.”
Unable to walk, Bakhshizadeh was carried out of the ravine on a board. With no ambulance available, she was driven to the hospital in the back of a truck.
She now has a broken neck and back.
“I’m very, very, very lucky to be able to walk again, hopefully soon, because… I was about to be paralyzed,” she said.
With no travel insurance, her family was forced to come up with more than $50,000 for her surgery. A GoFundMe has been set up to help with expenses and to get her back home.
Bakhshizadeh says she can’t believe her phone recorded the frightening ordeal and is counting her blessings.
“Appreciate your health. Hug your loved ones, and if you can walk, go take a walk,” Bakhshizadeh said. “Take some air, enjoy life. It’s shorter than what you think.”
She is hoping she will be able to return home in about two weeks once she is able to sit upright.
Bakhshizadeh has one warning for other travelers: make sure you get travel insurance, because you never know what may happen.
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