A skydiver has lived through a nightmare after hitting the ground at 125mph from a huge fall of 13,500ft.
Jordan Hatmaker was spinning out of control when her parachute got twisted around her leg. Even though she tried to use her back-up parachute, it didn’t work properly and both parachutes went in different ways.
She crashed into the ground just 20 seconds after trying to sort out her parachute, hurting her back, leg and ankle badly. But Jordan stayed awake the whole time and shouted for help because she was scared she couldn’t move.
READ MORE: Stuntman strapped under plane plummets 500ft to death as belt snaps mid-flight
Click for more of the latest news from the Daily Star.
The 35 year old explained: “Everything happened really quickly. I didn’t have any thoughts because I was spiralling so I didn’t know what was going on, I was just in strategy mode.”
After crashing onto her left leg, Jordan bounced and then landed on her back. She had to stay in hospital for 25 days to recover from the terrible accident, reports the Mirror. It took her three months to be able to walk again, but she still wants to go skydiving.
Jordan said: “I don’t think that you should give up things that you love just because an obstacle was put in your way, life is too short and you should do what makes you happy.
“I really hope to send a message of trying to find the silver lining in whatever situation you’re in. You never know how strong you are until you have to be, don’t underestimate yourself.”
Jordan fell head over heels for skydiving after her first jump in 2015. From then until 2020 she did five tandem jumps before deciding to train for her skydiving licence so she could go solo.
But disaster struck during her training in November 2021. She wanted to do two jumps to get closer to getting her licence before winter made it harder to practice.
Her first jump in Suffolk, Virginia, went well, but when she jumped from the Skyvan plane for the second time that day for her sixteenth jump ever, things didn’t go as planned.
After about 10 seconds of freefall, she moved away from her coach and pulled the cord to let out her parachute, but the pilot chute – the smaller one that comes out before the main one – got tangled around her leg.
Her leg was stuck up in the air as she fell at 125mph with nothing to slow her down. She tried to untangle herself, but while she was doing this, her back-up chute came out on its own. The sudden release made the main canopy come out of its bag and the two open parachutes flew away from each other, creating a “downplane”.
The parachutes made her fall even faster to the ground. In skydiving, it’s known that landing a downplane usually leads to serious injuries or death. Jordan, from Virginia Beach, Virginia, shared: “First I tried to push myself off the ground, and when I couldn’t move anything my first thought was I was paralysed and I was yelling that out.
“I’ve never heard sounds like those come out of my body. I screamed bloodcurdling screams.”
After falling near where she was meant to land, help got to Jordan in five minutes. She went to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and found out she had broken a lot of her lower back, her tibia and ankle, and hurt her spinal cord.
She explained: “They [doctors] said we don’t know what kind of mobility she’s going to have, but they didn’t think I was going to be paralysed because I could wiggle my toes.”
While getting better, she would tell her legs to move. She felt upset but always thought she would walk again one day, even if it seemed hard. She added: “I was very thankful to be alive, that was the thought I had most often.
“I had a lot of hope that I would walk again, even though I couldn’t lift my legs or move them back and forth. I had a lot of hope that I would do everything I wanted to do again.”
Just two weeks after getting home, Jordan reached a big goal when she could lift her legs on her own for the first time. “That moment I could only lift it maybe half an inch off the bed but it was just so great to conquer a milestone. It was a sign of progress and I was really thrilled and excited, it just gave me more motivation to keep going,” she added.
“I started walking three months to the day of the accident. It doesn’t feel real, it feels so surreal that even happened but I’m thankful that the accident happened. I feel like there’s a lot of growth that came out of it, and I really think there’s opportunity in tragedy.”
“You can always find something positive even if you can’t see it now, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and you’re going to be better for whatever you’re going through.”
Jordan is even thinking about skydiving again one day, after trying some practice in a wind tunnel.
“Don’t tell my family!” she joked. “We’ll see what happens when I get to the plane door!”
For the latest breaking news and stories from across the globe from the Daily Star, sign up for our newsletter by clicking here.