ping
Good for the girl. It’s a shame she has an idiot for a father.
Does this qualify as a miracle?
“, said the girl hurt her liver and broke her pelvis, lumbar spine in her lower back, a shoulder blade and several ribs. She also has a broken tooth.”
good condition can be a relative term
Life is too precious to risk it for frivolous reasons. Life and limb should only be put on the line when faced with extreme circumstances such as saving a life or defending freedom!
She’s from Texas, but was too young to jump there, so she and her father drove to OK. They took a six hour basic parachuting class (static line). Because of the load balance being what it was... the father was asked to jump first. He did. The daughter jumped next. Apparently, a third jumper refused to jump. There was a jumpmaster, that was obligated to ride back down with the no go jumper. He did.
The injured jumper had a partial malfunction of some kind. The report I heard said she was spinning and couldn’t cut away. I don’t know why or if she even tried. Perhaps she was wrapped up in the canopy or had something close to a horseshoe malfunction where part of the canopy was open and part of it was somehow still attached to her body, or the suspension lines were attached to her body in such a way as to not allow the canopy to open properly.
She impacted the ground and lived. Often in a case where the jumper lives, several factors come into play- like, landing in grass or a plowed field, enough of an open canopy to slow the fall rate to a survivable speed, landing in such a way so that the body distributes the force across the entire body or most of the body, resilient spirit, quick medical treatment, etc. She’s very lucky. The parents were already talking about suing the facility.
That's a lifetime of pain, right there. Poor kid.
She reached terminal velocity way before she had fallen 3,000 ft.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Makenzie “Mongo” Wethington. Don’t try to kill her. You’ll only make her mad.
I’m thinking she’s probably done with her skydiving phase.
Dang lucky to be alive.
All commercial jump facilities have been altered; DO NOT allow this ‘Father’ or any of his relatives to jump at your facility, or you risk being sued if anything goes wrong, EVEN THOUGH HE PROPBABLY SIGNED A WAVIER of liability, and an acknowledgement of all risks inherent.
I understand the family would be upset, but that is a very risky sport, even when all goes well. I’ll bet the girl wont be going back up there, if she ever gets over the shock of falling. She should have jumped in tandem or tied up with a trainer. If I could lose enough weight (20 to 30lbs), I would very much like to jump. It would be an unforgettable experience! I may have to accept Zip-Lining instead.
Either the reporter is kicking himself this morning, or this is a sad reflection of the America we live in. The story is focused on liability issues, and whether a 16 year old should have been allowed to jump. Maybe it’s just me, but my first and primary interest is how she survived. For sure, she will have an interesting story to tell her grandchildren. I trust that she will soon enough learn about the other scattered survivors of such falls, mostly military pilots, largely from WWII, who chose to jump rather than burn, and bailed out with missing or damaged parachutes from high altitude.
Sound words of my Father: Why would you jump out of a perfectly good running airplane?
He was a stunt pilot, and is now almost 96 years old.
he needs to be THROWN out of a plane for taking his daughter there in the first place... like said below, he went there on purpose to skirt laws in TX preventing same