They weren't going to unstrap her. She was going up.
Of course, she might have had an alternative. She could have emulated this woman:
Posted on 06/02/2022 2:39:02 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Supraja Alaparthi, 33, was killed and her son, Sriakshith Alaparthi, 10, and nephew, Vishant Sadda, 9 were injured after the parasail they were riding hurtled into the Old Seven Mile Bridge. The family was visiting the Florida Keys from Schaumburg, Illinois.
The incident occurred at about 5 p.m. Monday as a cluster of scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms pushed off the mainland. Wind gusts in the area were up to 28 knots, or about 32 mph, according to Jonathan Rizzo, National Weather Service Key West’s warning coordinator meteorologist.
Authorities investigating the case say the wind caused the parasail to peg. This means the sail was being controlled by the wind, and it was so full of air that it risked dragging the boat.
The boat’s captain, 49-year-old Daniel Couch, feared the sail would drag the boat and endanger others, so he purposefully cut the cable that connected their harness to the boat, the report said.
He was hoping to catch the family on their way down, a law enforcement source told the Herald.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
Shouldn’t have flown if the weather was threatening...
Good Lord…
I read reports yesterday other companies criticizing this one for cutting the line, saying that should never happen and this captain was incompetent.
Yeah sure, he was gonna “ catch them”
Self preservation at work
so he traded the possible risk of endangering others, to the guaranteed risk of endangering these 3 people.
I don’t care if he’s shooting kids, we’re not going in there (Uvalde police). I know, unrelated, but is it?
Nowhere near the same. The only surprise is that all 3 weren’t killed. There was no justification for cutting the line. NONE. He killed that woman.
Manslaughter is the best he could hope for if I was DA there.
I have parasailed. You are basically a human kite being pulled by the boat. What happens when you cut a kite string is the same thing that would happen to a parasail.
“He was hoping to catch the family on their way down”
How the hell does that work???
I’m sure it’s covered in the parasailing boat captains handbook. SMH
I will gladly pay for 10 Senators to go parasailing with this guy as captain of the boat, anyone want to join me?
Never parasailed. Story said they were dragged a mile or two across the water. Are they able to pull any kind of emergency harness release in the event of a water landing? Or are you just strapped in at the mercy of the chute if you hit water?
I went parasailing around 35 years ago down in the Bahamas, and it was fun. But I was young and indestructible, or so I thought.
They did the parasailing from a platform off the shore. They took a about fifteen of us out to the platform on a boat, we boarded the boat, and we were arrayed around the perimeter of two sides, leaving two sides open.
The parasailer would get strapped into the harness by two employees, and when ready, they clipped the rope to the harness, gave the harness one final check and hard tightening of the straps, the boat immediately took up the slack, and then took off, and you rose into the sky.
Then, when you were ready to come down, the boat would cruise by the platform, slow, and turn slightly so the rope was over the platform, and one of the employees would attach a huge carabiner on the end of a short rope attached to the middle of the platform, and the boat would slowly move ahead. As it did so, the parasailing customer would be slowly pulled down to the platform, grabbed by the employees, and the harness released.
The boat would come to a full stop, and the next person, already in a harness, would be guided into place, rope attached, harness snugged down, and the process would repeat.
On this day, the wind was gusty.
The boat was cruising with a happy parasailer up in the sky, and the two muscular black Bahamian employees with long dreadlocks were fitting the harness to one of our group, a petite, attractive blonde in a bikini who was going up next. They stood on either side of her checking the harness, and as the boat went by, they attached the carabiner to the line and began pulling the guy down as we all looked on.
But because it was gusty, they were having trouble bringing him down smoothly. first he would descend towards the water too fast, so they would speed up, then he would shoot back up in the sky. All the while, he was going to one side, then the other, and the whole process looked on the verge of being out of control with the parasailer going all over the sky.
As we watched them struggle to bring him in, when he got nearly to the raft, he shot to the side just as the boat slowed, and he came down hard on the edge of the platform, badly cutting his great toe which began streaming blood rather liberally.
As we all watched nervously (except those of us who had already gone up) they hastily unhooked him, and took the tow rope over to attach it to the harness of the cute bikini-clad blonde girl who was watching all this in terror. With eyes the size of dinner plates, she was stuttering and attempting to say she didn’t want to go up, but...she just couldn’t quite spit it out, though I am certain the two employees knew exactly what she was trying to say through her nervous stutter that sounded like “I...ah...uh...the...uh...I...don’t...ah...uh...” as they attached the tow rope, her head twitching nervously from side to side looking desperately for a way out.
The two wildly grinning muscular Bahamian employees with dreadlocks had thought bubbles above their heads that seemed to say with humorous relish “It’s too late now!” pulled the harness straps on each side in unison down hard as the boat simultaneously took off rocketing her into the sky.
She screamed all the way up, and kept screaming until we could no longer hear her!
All these years later, I can hear her screams of terror as the boat carried her away, while we nervously laughed and the casualty’s toe bled.
It was a long time ago, but I sure don’t recall any kind of harness release. My guess is, they wanted to be sure someone didn’t get about 100 feet up and decide they wanted out.
The heck with that. I say go straight to keel-hauling at 60 mph with no effort to avoid the prop.
The headline sounds like he did something wrong...not so
Did they ever bring her back?
They weren't going to unstrap her. She was going up.
Of course, she might have had an alternative. She could have emulated this woman:
Not like they got up there themselves.
The boat driver is suppose to be in charge of checking to make sure things are safe.
He failed.
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