A Brazilian man has taken his passion for parachuting to extremes by carrying out a series of daring jumps from his high-rise apartment block in Ribeirão Preto, northwest of São Paulo.
One video of the stunt shows Aluisio Paes de Barros Filho – wearing only casual clothing and a parachute – leaping from the edge of a balcony, hundreds of meters above a swimming pool and car park.
Footage of the risky jump had created a stir online, with news outlets struggling to confirm the location of the jumps or identify the parachuter. One clip, uploaded to YouTube, has so far received more than one million views.
But in an interview with a Brazilian magazine, Aluisio Paes de Barros Filho came forward to explain that he actually has 22 years’ experience in parachuting.
“I’ve done several jumps in my apartment – I’ve been doing this since the beginning of the year. And of course I did not decide to jump without first checking the height and the safety conditions,” Filho told Veja.com.
He said the video with more than one million hits on YouTube was actually filmed on New Year’s Eve.
Filho has reportedly been jumping from his 27th-floor balcony since the beginning of the year. His Instagram page features a series of clips featuring similar leaps from the balcony of his home close to Avenue Caramura in Ribeirão Preto.