Photo: @rayestanya/Instagram
A 21-year-old Canadian TikTok influencer fell to her death during a skydiving accident in Toronto last month.
Tanya Pardazi, who amassed more than 100,000 followers on TikTok, died during her first jump at Skydive Toronto, her childhood friend, Melody Ozgoli, confirmed to CTV News Toronto, which was later reported by multiple outlets, including NBC News on Saturday (September 3).
Pardazi had completed a course required by the facility, which teaches "all of the fundamentals required to successfully complete your first skydive," including "equipment, how to exit the airplane, freefall body position (arch), canopy control, and emergency protocol," according to Skydive Toronto's website.
Skydive Toronto confirmed "a skydiving student aged 21 succumbed to fatal injuries obtained from an emergency situation," without specifically mentioning Pardazi by name in a news release shared on August 29.
The Facebook statement specified that the skydiver "released a quickly rotating main parachute at a low altitude without the time/altitude required for the reserve parachute to inflate" during the accident.
"The jumper was a welcomed recent addition to the skydiving community and will be missed amongst the student's new friends and fellow jumpers of Skydive Toronto Inc," the statement reads. "The team at Skydive Toronto Inc has been profoundly affected by this accident as they have refined their student training program for over 50 years."
Ozgoli told CTV News Toronto that the Pardazi was a semi-finalist in the Miss Canada competition and had always taken an interest in "new and adventurous activities."
University of Toronto Scarbrough cheerleading also paid tribute to Pardazi in a post shared on its Instagram account last week, which stated, "Forever part of our team and in our hearts, Tanya Pardazi was one in a million."