Superstition Mountains, ARIZONA — (Scroll Down For Video) — An adventurous base jumping trip almost turns fatal when two jumpers get their parachutes tangled together.
Scott Frankson and his friend spiraled out of control during the jump, but amazingly, the parachutes unwrapped in mid-air.
Frankson spiraled down with half a parachute, which caught on a boulder and saved him from serious injury. His friend’s parachute remained fully inflated, and he was able to land.
YouTube description: The plan was for jumper 1 to jump from an upper exit and flyby a lower exit where a second jumper would take off. Free fall would separate the two jumpers, and then jumper 1 would do a 360 turn down and around 2. Unfortunately, jumper 1 miss judged his turn and hit 2, causing a dangerous parachute wrap nearly 200 feet over a boulder field.
The collision caused them to rotate around each other nearly three times and the speed of the accident caused 1’s parachute lines to cut through 2’s lines, leaving him with only half an effective chute. Miraculously, at 125 feet above the ground, they unwrapped in mid-air, jumper 1 still has a fully inflated parachute and was able to kick his body around and untwists his lines before landing. Jumper 2 had half a parachute spinning up on its self while he uncontrollably spiraled to the ground, before crashing into a massive bolder. His parachute hung up on the top of the bolder stopping him from hitting the ground.
The precise point that jumper 2 impacted the bolder saved him from severe injury. The angle of his body matched the angle of the bolder dispersing the initial impact across his body preventing trauma. Any smaller bolder would have broken him in half. Furthermore, if he was a mere foot lower he would have impacted a shear face, one foot higher and he would have missed the big flat spot and slammed into jagged rocks on the other side.
In the sky dive/base jump world a parachute wrap at 200 feet could easily end in one or more fatalities or at least serious injuries. The fact that the jumpers untangled and walked away with bruises, cuts and a broken helmet is nothing short of a miracle.
