A young woman died after a boat propeller shredded her when she jumped into the water to recover her flip-flops while on vacation in Colombia.
Natalia Andrea Larranaga Fajardo, 26, suffered severe cuts and sustained serious injuries on her legs and lower back while in the sea at the White Watta beach in San Andres, Colombia, on November 27.
Witnesses took videos of the gruesome incident, and the footage shows people in nearby boats screaming in terror after she started getting cut by the propeller, turning the sea red.
Fajardo was from Cali, Columbia and was visiting San Andres’ sandy beach on vacation. While at the beach, she noticed a few people that she knew getting onto a boat, and in the true vacation spirit, she climbed aboard as well.
Fajardo noticed that she had left her flip-flops behind and decided to jump back into the ocean to get them. Tragedy struck only a few seconds after she jumped into the water, as one of the boat’s propellers accidentally hit her.
A news outlet shared the video of people in nearby boats screaming for help as she bled profusely from the fatal injuries she sustained.
Someone eventually pulled her out of the ocean and onto a jet ski, and she was quickly rushed to a nearby hospital.
The hospital said the woman arrived at around 5 pm local time, and the doctors performed several surgeries. Fajardo also received several blood transfusions, but unfortunately, she died several hours later at 2:30 am on November 28 after going into a cardiac arrest.
Colombian authorities started an investigation into the incident. The boat, which was carrying 24 tourists and had two crew members at the time of the accident, was immobilized.
The Colombian Maritime Authority released a statement saying the Colombian navy’s coast guard had handed over the two crew members to relevant authorities conducting the investigation.
San Andres officials also warned swimmers to stay clear of moving boats and alert crew members if they want to get into the water.
Cases of such accidents are not rare in the US, as just earlier this year, the son of a Spanish billionaire banker died similarly. He was the son of Juan Rodriguez, the founder of Banesco, worth over $3 billion. 31-year-old Juan Alviarez dove in to save his fiancée, who had fallen into the water during a competition in the Florida Keys.
Alviarez was maimed by a propeller immediately after jumping into the water and succumbed to his injuries. Luckily, his fiancé managed to stay clear of the deadly propellers and was pulled from the water safely.
In August this year, a mother of two from Chicago lost both feet after a similar boating accident. Lana Batochir, 34, was on a raft with her friends in Lake Michigan when a malfunctioning boat sucked the raft they were on underneath it. The boat’s propeller severed both her feet, and she had to get both legs amputated. Luckily, she survived the ordeal but now has to learn to walk using prosthetic legs.
