Parachute Fail: Canadian Woman Survives 5,000-Foot Fall While Skydiving

Skydiving — Oh, the thrill you will get once successfully done. But what happens if your parachute fails and you start to rapidly plummet from a 5,000 feet altitude? Do you think you will survive?

One Canadian woman did. The 30-year-old woman, who survived the skydiving incident, participated in a jump at Quebec’s Parachustime Adrenaline, near Montreal-Mirabel International Airport, over the weekend, People reported.

Several bystanders reportedly witnessed the said skydiving incident, which happened on a Saturday, watched with fear and disbelief as the shocking incident unfolded before their eyes.

Denis Demers was one of the many who saw the never-wrecking skydiving incident. He told Radio-Canada on Wednesday that what happened was a miracle, claiming he wouldn’t know how a person could survive a fall from an airplane like that, People reported.

Trois-Rivieres police reportedly stated that the woman, whose name was not revealed, was an experienced skydiver. There were claims that the woman jumped out of the plane when her main and back-up parachutes did not open.

Following the rapid skydiving free-fall, the woman reportedly hit a patch of trees and landed in a wooden area with only broken vertebrae and multiple fractures. According to a CBC report, the woman is recovering in a hospital but police say her life is no longer in danger.

Life-threatening risks are at hand when one does skydiving, but the recent incident is reportedly under investigation to determine whether it is a case of criminal negligence. Furthermore, the company that hosted the event reportedly refused to comment because of the on-going investigation.

Back in 2007, a skydiver was also reported to survive a 5,000-foot free fall in New Zealand. In this video, the skydiver pulled his parachute at 4,000 feet but it did not fully open. The partially opened parachute caught just enough air to spin him around.

He decided to open his reserved parachute at 650 feet but as he feared, it snagged with the main chute and failed to open. At 530 feet, 15 seconds from the impact, the skydiver waved goodbye to the camera believing he would die. But he didn’t. Just like the Canadian woman, he miraculously survived.

Nancy Koreen, director of sports promotion for the US Parachute Association (USPA), said that statements claiming that the parachute did not open was vague and often incorrect, CBC reported. She explained that the skydiver should open the parachute the proper altitude, otherwise it wouldn’t have enough time to deploy. She added that there could be chances that the main parachute would malfunction; hence, the skydiver must rely on the back-up chute.

Koreen, however, said that the chances of parachute malfunction were extremely rare and accidents were usually caused by user error. Claiming that none of the parachutes opened was misleading said Koreen because that was not the way how parachute works.

There was a request for an interview with the Canadian Sport Parachuting Association but it was reportedly denied.