Hang Gliding and Paragliding Volume 44 / Issue 2: February 2014 | Page 16

No big deal; third time’s the charm, I
thought. But here’s where the s##t hit
the fan. Seconds later:
I lightly pull down on my right
brake to distance myself from the
LZ, so when I start my final left turn
approach, I’ll be at the right height. I
hear a ripple sound emanating from
my upper right wing and look up. It’s
not firm; but it isn’t fully inflated.
I look down and to my left to check
my approach and pull down on my
left brake. The air is a bit turbulent.
Boom! Something has happened!
In front of me, my lines are twisted,
maybe one or two times, just as they
would be on a playground swing.
Chris Santacroce of Superfly,
under whose guidance I flew at Valle
De Bravo, commented on my predicament: “This had to be a spin event.
You must have been heavy on brake
and shy on weight shift as you made
the last few turns. At some stage,
you over-braked one side and it spun.
Naturally, you let off, but that’s the
formula that acro-pilots use to make a
helicopter. In the future, you need to
use more weight shift and less brake
(except to defend against deflations).”
I’m dropping fast; I say to myself:
“Oh s*&#t. This is not good.”
As I think about tossing my
reserve, I notice that I’m heading for
the trees. The left wing is inflated,
the right wing is flapping, and I’m
accelerating. I do not try to throw my
reserve, because I think I am too low;
it will never open in time.
I remember saying to myself,
hands up, as my instructor Terry
Bono at Pennsylvania Paragliding had
pounded into our heads as a tactic to
use if we were not sure what to do. For
a moment my kite looked as if it was
trying to re-inflate.
I’m crashing through the trees
and can see and hear the branches
snapping. I can also see my wing

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HANG GLIDING & PARAGLIDING MAGAZINE

catching part of the tree on the right,
which slows me down a little, but not
enough.
The kite lets go completely, as I
free-fall and hit the ground, square
on my butt. In the future, I might try
standing up sooner in my harness. I
remember getting ready to do so, but
when all hell broke loose, I must have
been preoccupied, forgot or didn’t
have time.
Never losing consciousness, I hit
the ground and felt an excruciating
pain in the base of my spine that is
hard to describe, so perhaps it’s easier
to leave that up to your imagination.
I rolled over on my side and this
time I moaned, “Oh s*#*t. This is not
good!”
I hope what I learned can help a
fellow pilot. You will recall I considered tossing my chute but thought it
was too late. We have all heard that
if you throw your reserve at a certain
height, it will open. But if you’re too
close, it won’t.
When I reviewed that decision
afterwards, it became clear to me that
if I had thrown my reserve when I was

just above the treetops, it might not
have opened fully, but it might have
fallen on the other side of the tree,
caught hold and reduced my fall. The
reserve does not have to open to save
your life when