VANCOUVER, Wash. — An 18-year-old woman charged with reckless endangerment for allegedly pushing her 16-year-old friend off a bridge has made her first court appearance. The Aug. 7 shove at Moulton Falls, northeast of Vancouver, Washington, was captured on video that went viral.
Tay’Lor Smith was arraigned Friday morning in Clark County District Court. The Columbian reports she pleaded not guilty. Reckless endangerment is a gross misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail.
Jordan Holgerson, the teen who fell 60 feet, suffered injuries ranging from broken ribs to punctured lungs.
On Friday a judge granted Smith supervised release. She is not to have contact with Holgerson. Another court hearing was scheduled for Dec. 4.
In one video, a woman is shown urging Holgerson to jump. In it, a woman tells Holgerson to “just go” and “I’m going to push you.”
Video that was posted earlier on YouTube and later removed shows Holgerson standing on the bridge with friends. Then a woman is seen forcefully pushing her off the span.
Jordan’s sister, Vanessa, told CBS Portland affiliate KOIN she believed Smith “tried to do it jokingly and didn’t think what could have happened.”
“You don’t really play around at 60 feet,” Vanessa said.
Jordan told reporters after the incident that she was happy to have survived.
According to KOIN, Jordan said that as she was falling, she “wasn’t thinking about anything, just what to do. What am I supposed to do?”
She did say that while she was in the air she tried “to push myself straight so my feet would hit first. That didn’t work.”
When she hit the water, she said she “couldn’t breathe. So that’s all I was thinking about.”
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