Australia has a flying superhero and his name is Sheldon.
A camera mounted on the helmet of his helmet captures Sheldon McFarlane’s successful pursuit of an unconscious skydiving student during a terrifying freefall last November in Australia.
In a YouTube video posted on Sunday, the student, Christopher Jones, is seen rolling on his back as he suffers a seizure during a dive. McFarlane races to Jones, his hand reaching into the frame to pull the parachute’s ripcord. It took McFarlane two attempts to reach Jones.
Jones regained consciousness with his chute fully deployed and was able to control his landing, according to ABC News Australia. More than 4.4 million viewers have watched the dramatic rescue on YouTube since Jones posted the video.
“At no time was I worried he was going to hit the ground without a parachute, but given the circumstances and where we were, I thought it would be better to get him under a parachute earlier than later,” McFarlane told ABC News Australia.
Jones has a history of epilepsy, which dashed dreams of becoming a pilot. Seizure-free for four years, Jones thought skydiving would be a good way to get that “feeling of flight” and had the OK of his doctor.
Jones is grateful to his jumpmaster, and though emergency censors on his pack likely would have triggered his chute at a certain altitude, Jones told the Huffington Post, the jump was “possibly the scariest moment of my life.”
David Pierini is a former newspaper writer and long-time photographer. Considered a luddite by most of his friends, they did not believe him when he broke the news that he would be writing for a technology website. He is fascinated by human nature and would love to cultivate stories about the people driving the tech bus. Reach out to him at [email protected].
3 responses to “Terrifying video shows why skydiving is worst time for a seizure”
Wow, that’s pretty scary. I used to skydive and fortunately never had anything like that happen to me. Except the time I accidentally fell out of the plane before I was ready to jump :-) I slipped on the wheel of the Cessna. Fun times!
I have no desire to jump out of a perfectly good airplane to prove anything. I’ll take my risks another way, thank you very much.
My two jumps, in which I did NOT suffer a seizure, and both of which were static-line, were the scariest moments of my life too. Funny thing about falling thousands of feet while your ride is flying away: it’s scary. Also thrilling.
This jump master is a hero.