Holly Wiffen, an experienced skydiver, was kicked in the head by another skydiver, knocking her out at 10,000 feet without a parachute. Miraculously, she survived with just a broken leg and fractured vertebrae.
Wiffen, an accomplished skydiver with over 425 jumps under her belt, was knocked unconscious after a colleague diver accidentally collided with her while she was doing a formation maneuver called “tracking.”
Without a parachute, she reportedly reached speeds of over 140 mph while she was out cold. As she dropped, other skydivers tried to catch up to her, but they were unable to do so and had to use their own parachutes.
Wiffen had no memory of pulling her rip cord, but by some miracle, she was able to do so about five seconds before what surely would have been a fatal impact.
Unfortunately, after realizing that she was moving too fast and too low to the ground, her emergency parachute also deployed. Instead of bringing her to a safe stop, the two parachutes produced a hazardous situation known as a “downplane,” which sped up her descent.
Hitting a tree probably saved her life
Fortunately, her landing was considerably softened when Wiffen crashed into a conifer tree.
GoPro camera footage captured the instant of the mid-air accident, which occurred over a festival at Langar airfield in Nottingham.
“I came down amidst caravans, buildings, trees, roads, all sorts. It was just an absolute mess of a place to land,” she told The Sun. “There’s also power lines all around that area as well, so I was very lucky not to hit any of those.
“If I hadn’t hit the tree I would have hit the ground and would have been soup. Most people don’t survive skydiving accidents like that.”
She said her fellow skydivers thought she was dead.
“People had to fight through brambles to find me,” she said. “They saw me disappear and wanted to get to me as fast as they could — they were just assuming they were picking up a dead person.”
“I was just tumbling but I felt like I was dreaming about skydiving and falling,” she recalled. “I didn’t come around until I was lying on the ground. My helmet had come off and I looked down at my leg and it was pointing in a different direction.”
Despite the experience and the injuries, Holly Wiffen plans to skydive again. A photo shared with The Sun shows Wiffen smiling broadly while strapped to a stretcher and giving the camera a thumbs-up.
“I want to get back to skydiving as soon as I can,” she said. “Although, knowing what happened and that I could have died also makes me a little nervous.”