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From: mspurgeo@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Mike Spurgeon)
Newsgroups: rec.skydiving
Subject: news reporting
Keywords: 9500 foot fall
Message-ID: <3394@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU>
Date: 21 May 91 02:09:56 GMT
Organization: Ohio University CS Dept., Athens
Lines: 30

Found the following Associated Press article in my local paper.
Could anyone who jumps at Bob Gates' place improve on the details?

PARKMAN (AP) -- A suburban Cleveland woman who survived a fall from
9,500 feet with a broken parachute remained hospitalized in critical 
condition today with a compressed fracture of the spine.
   Jill Shields, 31, of Euclid, was flown Sunday evening by helicopter
to MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland.
   The accident occured in Geauga County at the Cleveland Parachute
Center, where instructor Ed Velcro said Shields had jumped from a
plane at 9,500 feet.
   Troy Township fire Lt. Fred Ogrinc said Shields was found in 15 inches
of mucky ground.  She was conscious but complained of chest pains.
   "She didn't remember jumping out of a plane.  She didn't remember
hitting the ground," said Mark Mosley, an emergency medical technician
from Parkman Township.
   Mosley said two other skydivers who saw her falling with a faulty parachute
streaming behind her "tried to fly over to her, but she was flying at a much
faster rate."  He said they could pursue her only so far, then had to open
their own parachutes.
   Rescuers said branches broke her fall and the mud on the ground absorbed
some of the shock.
   "She put a good 1-foot hole into the ground," said Ken Russell, an
assistant fire chief from Troy Twp.
   Shields told her rescuers she had jumped more than 30 times.


Mike Spurgeon
Internet: mspurgeo@oucsace.cs.ohiou.edu