Maud Perrin, a 20-year-old French paraglider, was moments away from death when her reserve chute failed to deploy while doing a maneuver in Turkey.
Maud was attempting a maneuver called ‘twisted infinity tumbling’ when she made a mistake and became entangled in her wing. Her first reserve chute failed to open, but she was saved by the 2nd reserve chute successfully deploying.
The crazy incident was recorded on an action camera she was wearing. Check it out. So scary to watch.
Here’s what she told The Sun about the incident:
“During the attempt of the manoeuvre I fell into the canopy after pulling on the wrong timing and then trying to pull both of my reserves. The first one did not open so I had to pull my second reserve. I was just managing the situation. In the moment, I wasn’t thinking, I was just acting. When I saw that my first reserve did not open, I just had to get the other one out. At that moment I thought ‘this is basically my last chance so it has to open. The second reserve opened. I ended up in the water and the boat came to pick me up. Olu Deniz is a place you can take more risk trying out new stuff because you have high altitude and there is the rescue boat to come and pick you up. After watching my video over and over I was thinking of the right way to pull out my reserve so it would have opened or opened faster. I also saw what I did wrong in the way I was pulling on the breaks, so I don’t do it that way anymore. I tried the manoeuvre again over the lake in Annecy and it all went well. Now I am able to train it over the ground.”