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Lucky skydiving instructor to keep going |
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Scritto da Redazione Mission Extreme
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martedì 13 febbraio 2007 |
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 | | Skydive Freefall (filmed by James Boole) |
British skydiver Michael Holmes says he will continue free-falling for a job, despite nearly dying in his December 12 plunge to earth from 3657m above Taupo airport on New Zealand's North Island."It was a million-to-one chance," he told Britain's Mail on Sunday newspaper. "I'm prepared to stake my life on the likelihood that it will never happen again. (to be continued...)
 | | Michael Holmes (filmed by James Boole) |
"I'll continue making my living teaching skydiving and I'll still spend part of the year going round the world to different competitions."Mr Holmes survived because he landed in a blackberry bush, which broke his fall.The newspaper reported that the video Mr Holmes - a former champion skydiver from Jersey in Britain - shot of his fall with a helmet camera was "the most gut-wrenching, mesmerising and shocking clip of video footage imaginable".Photographs from the video have been posted on the Mail website, and Mr Holmes is reported to have been offered more than $43,000 for TV rights to the video record of the moment when he tugged the ripcord and discovered his parachute would not open.It shows frantic efforts to release the twisted parachute, as he spins so fast that movement is almost impossible, and then his attempt to release his reserve parachute - and the horror as he realises that, too, has become entangled above him.Mr Holmes' friend, Jonathan King, who jumped from the same plane, also filmed the fall, and as he landed a few seconds later, his helmet camera showed Mr Holmes - bleeding, broken, unconscious - but alive with only a punctured lung and a broken ankle."I didn't have time to think about anything," Mr Holmes told the newspaper."Friends ask if I was scared but really I was just angry that I'd done everything exactly as I should and it hadn't worked. I was very focused on what I was doing and I remember everything. Nothing's a blur."At an altitude of 170 metres - five-and-a-half seconds from the ground - the film shows Mr Holmes waving goodbye."I tried to think of something, the right thing to say for the camera. But I looked at the ground again and without thinking I just blurted out, "Oh s***, I'm dead... Bye!"Mr Holmes estimated he had reached terminal velocity of 193 km/h during the freefall part of his flight, but that the drag of the parachute had reduced his impact speed to about 128 km/h.He missed the airport car park by less than 30 metres and instead landed in a blackberry patch, which arrested his fall just enough to save his life.Mr Holmes was in Waikato Hospital for 11 days.He hopes to resume skydiving in April. © 2007 AAP
Video: http://tv.repubblica.it/home_page.php?playmode=player&cont_id=6841&fromplayer=6841&stream=video |