"It felt exactly like those dreams where you’re falling and then suddenly wake up right before you hit the ground,” Nina Bakhshizadeh tells PEOPLE
NEED TO KNOW
- Nina Bakhshizadeh says she fell from a bridge in Mexico during a guided ATV tour, breaking her neck and back
- “Honestly, I thought I was going to wake up from a nightmare. It felt exactly like those dreams where you’re falling and then suddenly wake up right before you hit the ground,” she tells PEOPLE
- Now, the makeup artist says she's currently staying at an Airbnb, figuring out how to get her home
A California makeup artist is still trying to get home after breaking her neck and back during a trip to Mexico.
Nina Bakhshizadeh was on a birthday trip in Cancun when she fell off a bridge during a guided ATV tour with her boyfriend and brother. According to ABC affiliate KABC-TV, she said her boyfriend’s tire got stuck on a wire, causing both of them to flip off the ATV.
Bakhshizadeh tells PEOPLE she never lost consciousness at any point of the ordeal and "felt the fall completely." Afterwards, she remembers "being awake," but feeling like she was "unable to get my body to breathe" as the fall had knocked the wind out of her.
“Honestly, I thought I was going to wake up from a nightmare. It felt exactly like those dreams where you’re falling and then suddenly wake up right before you hit the ground,” she explains. “I kept waiting for that moment.”
In footage of the fall obtained by PEOPLE, Bakhshizadeh and her phone can be seen tumbling to the ground, landing several feet below the bridge.
As the video continues, one person can be heard yelling her name while the makeup artist moans in pain. Meanwhile another voice tells her, "You have to breathe."
Bakhshizadeh tells PEOPLE she remembers the entire rescue “in detail" — and that her brother, boyfriend and several other people “carried me on their shoulders and climbed all the way back up to the main part of the park.”
The group tried waiting for the ambulance, but she claims it never arrived. That’s when, she says, the group loaded her into the back of somebody's car and drove an hour to the hospital.
Credit: @Nina_bakhshi_
Bakhshizadeh says she was first taken to PlayaMed Hospital, where she learned that her back and neck were broken and that she “needed surgery immediately.”
The woman was then transferred to Hospital Azura, where she had to put down a $25,000 deposit — family and friends worked together to come up with the money, she says — before undergoing surgery about 28 hours after her fall.
Credit: GoFundMe
The makeup artist tells PEOPLE she was released four days later and is currently staying at an Airbnb, figuring out how to get her home.
“I don’t really have a plan yet,” she admits. “We looked into medical flights, but they were way too expensive.”
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Bakhshizadeh has raised more than $50,000 through GoFundMe to help her "continue my medical care, support my recovery, and pay back the friends and family who sacrificed so much to help save my life."
Although the makeup artist says her recovery “is far from over," she also feels grateful for the way her community has rallied together to support her.
"I’m still emotionally processing everything, but every message, donation, and person checking in on me made me feel less alone," she tells PEOPLE. "It reminded me there’s still so much humanity in the world."
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