World of the Bizarre

Skydiver survives after parachute fails

By T.K. Randall
September 1, 2012 ·  11 comments

Image Credit: sxc.hu 35-year-old Liam Dunne had jumped from a plane and deployed his main parachute over a festival in New Zealand when he found himself in an unrecoverable spin. Ditching his main chute and reaching for the reserve he realised to his horror that he was unable to find the handle. The chute did finally open, but by then he was so close to the ground that it didn't really matter. Fortunately he landed on some extremely soft and boggy ground, but still managed to shatter his spine.

"Skydiving is an awesome sport, and I've done 4,000 jumps and never had a problem," he said. "As my reserve chute was coming out I realised it was too late, so I just braced for the impact. Luckily I hit the softest patch of ground on the whole airfield. I bounced hard and my whole left side went numb. " Fortunately doctors believe that despite his injuries Liam should be eventually able to walk again.[!gad]35-year-old Liam Dunne had jumped from a plane and deployed his main parachute over a festival in New Zealand when he found himself in an unrecoverable spin. Ditching his main chute and reaching for the reserve he realised to his horror that he was unable to find the handle. The chute did finally open, but by then he was so close to the ground that it didn't really matter. Fortunately he landed on some extremely soft and boggy ground, but still managed to shatter his spine.

"Skydiving is an awesome sport, and I've done 4,000 jumps and never had a problem," he said. "As my reserve chute was coming out I realised it was too late, so I just braced for the impact. Luckily I hit the softest patch of ground on the whole airfield. I bounced hard and my whole left side went numb. " Fortunately doctors believe that despite his injuries Liam should be eventually able to walk again.

Source: Telegraph | Comments (11)

Tags: