In skydiving, both main AND reserve malfunctioned

2023-10-01

The main AND the reserve parachutes got tangled around my leg. I was falling with no parachute while my leg was trapped in all ropes. I was never able to free my leg.

I cut away first and then pulled the reserve but I guess that cutting away almost did nothing.

Almost after the first spin I was not seeing anything. Everything was spinning so fast that I felt I'm going unconscious. I almost closed my eyes and went for the pull.

As soon as the main got away, the grip around my leg was so tight that there was no way to free the leg. I just tried grabbing on the lines to find which one is going to stop the canopy from rotating and making it a little stable.

I was upside down all the way down to the ground. When the reserve opened, I was still upside down because of the main wrapping around my leg.

I fell to ground on my back while one leg was in the ropes and hands grabbing to lines. No flare!

It was almost like falling a second story balcony! Luckily some grass helped me. But my whole body is sore.

I actually gave up a few times thinking there's nothing else I can do and I'm just going to die. But looking down and seeing that I still had altitude and time made me to try more and more to finally get something to work.