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Woman Hospitalized After Rickenbacker Causeway Jump

MIAMI (CBS4) – A woman who jumped off the Rickenbacker Causeway Sunday evening is expected to be okay.

Miami Fire Rescue rushed Jessica Stavitz, 22, to the hospital where she was listed as stable.

Stavitz and a group of friends took the leap together. Then moments later they recorded video of Stavitz getting rescued after breaking her tailbone,  five bones in her back and chipping her spine.

"Unbearable pain. I hit the bottom of my tailbone and I could feel my bones cracking. I started to drown," Stavitz  said.

Stavitz's friend Anthony Medina had jumped right before she jumped. He swam over to her and saved her

"I realized she was hurt. I went to help her and I started swimming towards her," Medina said.

He got her to safety before rescue arrived. Medina, Stavitz and this whole crew grew up together, attending Miami Beach High School.

They said this is something as local kids growing up here was just something they do.

"It was a horrible decision," Stavitz said.

They won't do this anymore.  The causeway is 76 feet high, equivalent to seven stories. The water below is also deceiving, only 12 to 18 feet deep.

Stavitz's 7 year old watched her mom jump.

"She said before I went up to not go," said Stavitz.

So now a lesson learned and a message passed along.

"Before you do something stupid you need to think about it.  I could have been dead," Stavitz said.

Stavitz will be in her back brace and in rehabilitation for 6 months.

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