Mamitho Lendas was visiting the World’s End cliff, the main tourist attraction at the Horton Plains National Park in Sri Lanka, when he fell off the 4,000ft cliff. He was stepping back to snap a perfect picture of his wife, Linda, when he stumbled at the edge and fell down the side of the cliff.
Fortunately, a tree broke his fall at about 160ft (50 meters) down the cliff, according to the BBC. He landed on top of the tree without suffering any serious injury.
About 40 members of the Sri Lankan army were called to rescue him. Backed by a military helicopter, the men climbed down the side of the cliff using ropes and rescued Lendas who was stranded on top of the tree on the side of the cliff.
After rescuing the tourist, the soldiers carried him lying on a stretcher for about three miles until they reached a place where they found a vehicle that took him to the hospital.
Hospital officials said that he suffered no major injuries and that he was in a stable condition.
“He was extremely lucky because he fell on top of a tree about 130 feet from the top,” the Sri Lankan army spokesman, Brigadier Jaynath Jayaweera, told AFP on Saturday.
The video shows the moment that members of the Sri Lankan army were preparing to climb down the side of cliff to rescue Lendas. It also shows the soldiers carrying him on a stretcher after the rescue.
“It was very scary and very painful as well. (At) the time, I was taking pictures and I had a misstep and I fell down backwards, two times, and then I sat in bushes for like three and a half hours and… [it was] the longest three and a half hours of my life,” Lendas told reporters.
He was discharged from hospital after recovering from the minor injuries he suffered in the fall.
The military spokesman described him as the first person to survive a fall from the top of World’s End.
This is not the first time a tourist has fallen off the Word’s End cliff while trying to snap a photo. According NY Daily News, a Polish man fell to his death in August while trying to snap a selfie with his children.
The Daily Mail also reports that in 2011, an Australian tourist, Christopher Pilther, 53, fell to his death while visiting World’s End cliff.
World’s End is a popular destination for about one million tourists, mostly from Western countries, who visit Sri Lanka every year. It gives a grand view of the surrounding mountainous terrain of the coastal area.
