A British skydiver has survived a 3,500ft fall after his parachute failed to open. Charlie Williams, 25, was saved by a corrugated iron roof he smashed through at 120mph.
"Ouch! That's gonna leave a mark."
It broke the army officer's fall as he landed on a shanty town in Kenya, reports the Sun. He escaped with three cracked vertebrae and a dislocated finger and is now recovering at his parents' home in Bradford.
Charlie said: "I don't know if I'm very lucky or very unlucky. I'm alive and frankly that's all that matters."
I wouldn't waste money buying Lotto tickets. You just used up all your luck.
He clipped the side of the aircraft and was sent spiralling head-first after he leapt from a Cessna 102 plane. As he pulled his ripcord his feet got entangled in the rigging. Charlie hurtled towards the ground with the canopy flapping uselessly.
OK, he had partial deployment. That slowed him down enough so he didn't crater.
He said: "I was very frightened and I was panicking. My body position meant it was impossible to deploy my reserve parachute."
Posted by: Steve ||
11/18/2004 11:17:46 AM ||
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Well, the current world record for highest survived fall is over 33,000 feet. I guess once you fall far enough to reach terminal velocity it doesn't matter if you fell from 3,000 or 30,000, however I would expect the cold and lack of oxygen once you get much above 10,000 ft could be nearly as dangerous as the fall itself?
Posted by: Dar ||
11/18/2004 12:36 Comments ||
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Posted by: Dar ||
11/18/2004 12:42 Comments ||
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I believe it was Ernie Pyle who coined the phrase "fugitive from the law of averages."
This guy just lived it.
Posted by: Mike ||
11/18/2004 12:43 Comments ||
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"I was very frightened and I was panicking. My body position meant it was impossible to deploy my reserve parachute."
By "body position" I assume he means "curled up, screaming, crying like a baby".
'Cuz, that's how I'd be in that situation.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
11/18/2004 12:43 Comments ||
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Mike--Don't know if he coined it, but I've seen that line in a Bill Mauldin "Willie and Joe" cartoon before.
Posted by: Dar ||
11/18/2004 12:50 Comments ||
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Yup, it was Willie and Joe. The two of them are sitting in a foxhole with ordinance flying back and forth over their heads, and Willie says to Joe: "I feel like a refugee from th' law of averages." Classic quote.
Posted by: Weird Al ||
11/18/2004 16:08 Comments ||
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I guess once you fall far enough to reach terminal velocity it doesn't matter if you fell from 3,000 or 30,000,..
Apparently, Mr. Williams' velocity wasn't actually "terminal"..... :)
A 17-year-old girl has successfully sought a divorce from her mother in a New South Wales Court. The Toronto Children's Court, south of Newcastle, today granted the girl's application for an "alternative parenting plan". The girl says her mother sold her into prostitution from the age of 10.
Posted by: God Save The World ||
11/18/2004 7:19:36 AM ||
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This is not a first. My wife works in special education and has encountered at least one similar case here (U.S.). There are a lot of single-parent (and probably two-parent) families that go into total breakdown, usually because of drug addiction. There aren't always capable relatives available to step in. Once in a while a neighbor (often a parent of one of the child's close friends) will step in and provide refuge for an older child, but that gets messy when parental signatures or medical care are required.
Recommended reading: "A Child Called It" by David Pelzer. This is the first of a series of three books that take David from childhood to adulthood in a home dominated by a dangerously mentally ill mother. Don't read it when you're already feeling down.
Posted by: Tom ||
11/18/2004 8:03 Comments ||
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I'm not too sure about the "divorce" terminology. If it was possible to divorce a blood relative, I'm sure that many a prodigal son (and daughter) would be a free agent.
"Permanently removed from the biological mother's care and custody with a court-appointed legal guardian" would be a longer but more accurate description, I hope.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/18/2004 9:06 Comments ||
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In the US they call it "emancipated minor." Many times it's used by kids that make it big in Hollywood so they can control their own money. Macauley Culkin is one example that comes to mind.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
