A terrible accident today...

We are located directly on the beach. Our camper sits maybe 300 yards from the water, and the airport is just a couple blocks the other way. For the last few weeks we have been watching sky divers fall from the sky several times a day. I can sit at the table in the camper working, and watch them. Some of the time they are single jumpers, some of the time they are tandems. Some times they land on the beach, other times they land in a large field 1 block away.

Late this morning I was sitting at the table working and I heard sirens. And then more sirens. Then I looked out the window to see some people looking up the street. I went outside but I just saw a fire truck in the street, nothing exciting.

Al had been out with Roxie driving on the beach and he came home in a hurry and said to grab the camera. We drove up the street to see this:

As we drove away they were bringing Life Flight in, but they weren't in a hurry to leave, neither was the ambulance. The jumper had died.

From what the news says, his chute was open when he landed on the building, but some of the witnesses say that it was out but not opened. We watch them some days and they are sideways and almost upside down right before they land, like they are trying to be dare-devils or just show off. I do not know if this was the case this time, but we have often wondered how they can land when they drop so fast and hard.

As this just happened around noon, I didn't want to post this until I knew what had happened, so I did some searching on the internet and found a YouTube Video that someone had posted 2 days ago of their jump over this same area. In the video they land right where this jumper was supposed to land. These are screen shots from the video. The first one shows the condo where the jumper actually landed, the other shows our camper just up the street.

As I watched the video, I was thinking how really beautiful it is to see the view from the sky diver's camera. But I guess today we saw firsthand what the risks are.