Falling 3km… and living to tell the tale

Share this article: Share Tweet Share Share Share Email Share

Cape Town - He plunged 10 000 feet (3 048m) from the sky and has lived to tell the tale. Seventeen-year-old Henco van Wyk, a skydiver from Mossel Bay, is recovering in a private Cape Town hospital after slamming into the ground without a functional parachute while skydiving on Sunday. It is believed that Henco’s main parachute failed to open properly and, when he deployed the reserve parachute, it got tangled with the main one. The heavy impact injured his back and legs, but his family were relieved to hear on Thursday that any danger to his spine had “been averted” and that he had not suffered head injuries. He is set to undergo further surgery on a leg on Monday. His father, Henk van Wyk, said his son was able to communicate properly and was very concerned about his upcoming Grade 11 exam.

“But we reassured him about that because it is not the priority at the moment,” his father said.

The hard landing had resulted in a few broken bones with no serious injuries to his spine, his father said.

The Outeniqua High School pupil lives in Groot Brakrivier and attends the boarding school in George.

He took up skydiving in February. He had since completed 40 jumps and earned his A-licence, meaning he was qualified to freefall without a static line.

His father, who was in Mpumalanga at the time, said he rushed home as soon as he heard news of the fall.

But Henco’s mother, who was at the scene, watched as her son tumbled 3 048m from the sky at the Mossel Bay airfield. That’s equal to the length of about 30 rugby fields.

“His mother was very shocked, but she is doing a lot better now that he has had the operation,” Henk van Wyk said.

He said that the operation was “complicated”, which was why Henco had been transferred to a Cape Town hospital.

Henco’s father is the owner of Skydive Mossel Bay.

In an earlier statement, he described his son’s mishap as a “pilot-chute in tow malfunction”.

Henco had tried to release the main parachute, but the mechanism failed and the crumpled parachute would not cut away to make space for the reserve parachute.

“When he activated his reserve, the situation worsened as the main pilot chute got entangled with his reserve parachute,” his father said.

The parachute had opened at 3 500ft.

“This caused his reserve parachute to partially collapse and induced a high-speed spin,” he added.

Henco was initially taken to the ICU in the Bayview Life hospital in Mossel Bay.

Two days later he was transferred to a private hospital in Cape Town by air ambulance for special treatment for his spinal injuries.

His parents are expecting a full recovery.

An emergency services ambulance was on the scene within 15minutes of the accident, his father said.

Coincidentally, a paramedic known as “Willie”, who attended to Henco, had also attended to Henk van Wyk after a skydiving incident 15 years ago.

Henk said that in 1999, a hard landing had damaged his hip and his pelvis, rendering him “out of action” for two months.

Henco was two at the time.

After a full recovery, Henk took part in three Iron Man triathlons.

He said that the incident had not deterred his son from his passion for skydiving.

“He’s already asking me when he’ll be able to dive… but I’m not too keen to have him back out there just yet,” Henk said. – Additional reporting by Janine Oelofse.

[email protected]

Cape Argus