This Uber driver who was beaten up by four teenage muggers before being thrown off a tall bridge into a river credits playing dead for the fact that she escaped with her life.

Marcia Angola, 40, was beaten up by the four teenage males during a mugging in the Brazilian city of Tangara da Serra on Saturday, 24th July.

She told reporters: “They called for me by app and we stopped on a corner, where they said they would fetch another person. But that person did not exist, and they announced the mugging.”

The four teens threw Marcia onto her taxi’s back seat, where they threatened her, demanding money and her car.

As they deemed the money in the car to be insufficient, they then blindfolded her and drove at breakneck speed.

Marcia told reporters: “At a certain point, I pulled off the blindfold, and I think that’s what got them angry. They started beating me, punching me and said they were going to throttle and kill me.

“My only way out was to play dead.”

However, Marcia was unable to hide that she was winded, and she took a deep breath.

She said: “He saw I was alive and the others said ‘let’s kill her, squeeze her neck’. At no point did they reveal their motive. At one point, they laughed at my swollen and bruised face.”

The four muggers pulled over at the tall bridge over the Sepotuba River, where they beat Marcia again.

She said: “They were scared someone would show up, and they lifted me up by my hands and feet. They threw me off the bridge.”

Marcia was scared she would die, as she did not know how to swim.

She said: “When I fell, I just remember I asked God that I fall in the water because had I fallen to the ground, I would have died.

“I sank, and when I surfaced, I saw they were looking. I stayed quiet and sank again, I let the water take me downstream, I tried to balance myself, sort of floating because I did not know how to swim and I could not sink.”

When she realised the muggers had left, she managed to get out of the water and ask local residents for help. She was then taken to hospital.

The suspects fled with Marcia’s vehicle to the nearby municipality of Nova Olimpia, where they robbed a watch shop, from which they stole watches, gold chains and two mobile phones.

Cops caught up with them back in Tangara da Serra, where they were caught with their stolen goods including the victim’s car and documents.

The officers arrested the teenagers, who had prior criminal records and who used a toy gun to carry out the attack.

The police are investigating the case.