A California skydiver hits the ground at 30-miles-an-hour and lives to tell the story.The fall was caught on camera.
Stapleton, a master of 7000 skydiving jumps, was testing a flag release stunt with jump partner katie nelson — when things began going wrong.
The speed of the deployment was too much and it actually flipped me through the risers of my parachute and fouled my parachute.
That’s when stapleton began spinning.
How long were you spinning?
Most of my life, is what it felt like.
During that three minute spin, Craig deployed his reserve chute.It got stuck in the already tangled chute.
While Craig was trying to survive… Nelson was watching… powerless to help her friend.
I was pretty sure I was about to watch my friend die.
Craig dropped out of the sky in the middle of an acampo vineyard…
I landed parallel to the grapes.
Right next to iron grape stakes in freshly plowed dirt.
One of my last thoughts before I hit was, ‘I really hope I don’t hit an iron spike, because it’ll just be messy.
Nelson, a nurse, landed… dropped her chute and ran for Craig…
I was expecting a traumatic head injury convinced he was dead.
I couldn’t believe that his head was sticking up, I was like, no he’s just twitching.
I hurt quite a bit and in my mind, I thought, that’s a really good sign. I’m really hurting. That’s a good thing. And then I tried to get up.
He was rushed to the hospital, no broken bones, no internal bleeding.
Just a dislocated shoulder and some major bumps and bruises.
I completely lucked out. God watches out for idiots and puppy dogs and he just let me live and walk away.
You’d think slamming into the ground at 30 miles an hour would sway craig from ever skydiving again… you’d be wrong.
This weekend is out, but I think next I’ll be back in the air.
