Skydiver survives 11,500ft plungeJOHANNESBURG, South Africa (Reuters) -- A South African skydiver survived a 3,500 meter (11,500 ft) plunge after her parachute failed to open and lines broke on her reserve chute, a local skydiving club said Monday.
Christy McKenzie was hurtling towards the ground at more than 200 kms (120 miles) per hour on Sunday when her parachute failed to deploy, Johan Mulder, the chief instructor at the Johannesburg Skydiving Club, told Reuters.
"When it didn't open she tried to deploy her reserve parachute and it had a fairly hard opening. A couple of the lines broke and so it was not fully open," he said.
This meant that her descent was still dangerously fast.
Powerlines broke her fall and may have saved her life. She survived with a hairline fracture to her pelvis.
"It's extremely, extremely rare ... it's unheard of that there are malfunctions in reserve parachutes," Mulder said, adding that the equipment was being sent to the manufacturer to determine why it did not work properly.
The Johannesburg Star newspaper quoted McKenzie, an experienced skydiver, as saying from her hospital bed: "I'll jump again."
The incident occurred at Carletonville, about 70 km (40 miles) west of Johannesburg.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Back when I was in college, eons ago, I took a physics class. One of the exercises we did was to determine how much area of your back you would need to land on to absorb the shock of falling from an airplane without dying. I can't recall the exact amount, but according to the professor (who never tried our calculations) it could be done.
That is one very lucky lady.
Topic: Giving your guardian angel a workout (Read 981 times)