Holly Wiffen, 35, plummeted 10,000ft without an open parachute while skydiving – and miraculously survived the terrifying ordeal above Langar airfield, near Nottingham.
Wiffen took part in a group skydiving experience on August 7. The group was doing something called “tracking jump,” which means jumpers dive in a horizontal position, allowing them to plummet faster. But what started out as an exciting activity quickly turned into complete horror.
In a terrifying mid-air accident, one of the other skydivers accidentally kicked Wiffen in the head, knocking her unconscious, according to Mirror. She then passed out at 10,000ft in the air, with no parachute deployed.
Her sister launched a GoFundMe page after the accident, explaining: “Holly was involved in a skydiving accident on the 7th of August where she was knocked unconscious by another skydiver during a tracking jump and woke up on the ground.”
Despite the dramatic fall, Wiffen miraculously survived.
“Unfortunately she suffered a broken leg and fractured vertebrae but was lucky to walk (hobble) away with her life. The road to recovery is long and crap so I have made this to help her cover the cost of her physio (the NHS has a huge waiting list) as well as covering some of her other costs whilst she cannot work as she is unfortunately self employed.
Holly isn’t one to ask for help but I know from what she has told me about the skydiving community everyone will be eager to help out one of their own,” her sister wrote.
Survived the terrifying fall
Now, appearing on the UK’s This Morning show, Wiffen opened up about the fall and what she remembers from the moments before she hit the ground.
“Yeah, it was instant – it would just went black, I don’t even kind of remember leaving the plane,” she told the hosts.
“And then I just was dreaming of falling – it was just really surreal. I just thought, ‘I’m falling and I’m dreaming about falling’, it was really like kind of peaceful.
“But then I kind of felt like I was a bit unstable, and then in my kind of mind, I was thinking back to my like training – I was thinking, ‘Right, if I’m falling and I’m unstable, I should be arching and trying to reach my parachute’ – and obviously, you can see in the clip that’s what’s kind of happening. But I was out, I was asleep.”
Fortunately, Wiffen’s training was not the only thing working in her favor.
A mandatory safety device automatically activated as she hurtled toward the ground, deploying her reserve parachute just seconds before she slammed into a large conifer tree.
When she eventually woke up, she was left suspended high among the branches. At first, she was completely numb to the pain, with the shock of what had just happened seemingly taking over.
Plummeted 10,000ft
Rather than panic about the fall, Wiffen immediately began worrying about her skydiving gear.
“But I just looked down and thought right so there’s my reserve canopy – I must have been skydiving. I’ve still got my kit on,” she said.
“Right, get my kit off because if I’ve done something bad you know the paramedics are going to cut my stuff off me and it’s very expensive.
“And I looked down and I thought right let’s do a full body check. So I checked everything – no pain. I saw my kind of leg to one side and I saw the brake and thought well that’s broken, let’s ignore that.”
After surviving a fall that could easily have ended in tragedy, Wiffen says she is still determined to return to the sport she loves.
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