11-Year-Old Girl Falls 60 Metres From Suspension Bridge At Chinese Tourist Park

A tourist attraction in China has been temporarily forced to close down after an 11-year-old girl fell through a gap in a bridge and broke her spine.

The Tangli Happy Play Valley, in the north western city of Dalian, features a 60-metre-high suspension bridge that offers incredible views of the valley below.

The young girl fell through one of the one-foot-wide gaps between the glass planks on the bridge and fell to the ground when her safety harness failed.

The bridge, which is known as 'Bubu Jingxin' or 'Startling Steps', has now been temporarily shut down, although other attractions at the park remain open.

The girl was strapped into a safety harness at the time of her fall, but it didn't help her when she fell through the purposely designed breaks between planks on the bridge.

According to reports in local media, the cord failed and she plummeted nearly 200 feet to the forest floor below.

While she still suffered bruises to her head, a concussion, lung injuries and fractures to her spine in the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae, she is still incredibly lucky not to have lost her life.

In a statement that also confirmed the girl's injuries, the Tangli Happy Play Valley confirmed that the girl was then taken from the park to hospital, where she remains in a stable condition.

The bridge is one of six 'challenges' that the park offers to the many visitors that come through the doors.

There is another glass bottomed bridge, a large high altitude swing, a transparent tube slide, and a metal step trail - which is thought to lead to the glass plank bridge at the centre of this incident.

As mentioned, those attractions remain open despite the glass bridge being temporarily closed down following the girl's accident.

The bridge spans a gap of 280 metres at a height of nearly 60 metres. It allows visitors to take in the spectacular views of the forested valley that the park in Liaoning Province offers

Like everywhere else in the world, the park only reopened and started taking visitors again on 3 May after the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the local press, an investigation into the causes and failures that led to the girl's fall are currently the subject of an ongoing investigation, and the Startling Steps will remain closed until that investigation has concluded in satisfactory fashion.