Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!sei.cmu.edu!fs7.ece.cmu.edu!o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!bb1v+ From: bb1v+@andrew.cmu.edu (Barry Lowell Brumitt) Newsgroups: rec.skydiving Subject: Re: news reporting Message-ID: Date: 28 May 91 13:53:38 GMT Organization: Class of '91, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 42 -- Dan Rossi got some further information on the incident last week at -- -- Cleveland. Here's an article he wrote up. I'm posting it since he's -- -- having some trouble with his account. Barry A-12269 -- I just got back from a day of sitting on the ground at Cleveland Sport, and I have some more information about Jill Shields and her miracle landing. First of all, I am happy to report that Jill is doing very well. When I spoke with her, she was in amazingly good spirits and expects to be leaving the hospital soon. I went with another jumper to pick up Jill's gear at the local police station. When we stretched it out, some new facts appeared. It was originally thought that Jill never pulled her reserve ripcord, and that it had just come open on impact, however, this may not be the case. From what my friend said it looked like, and from what I could feel, the reserve pilot chute and bridle were wrapped around the left riser about twenty or thirty times. The left riser is the one which did not release when Jill attempted to cut away. This would indicate that the reserve pilot chute had been out in the slip stream for some time. Also, her reserve ripcord was not found at the police station or the drop zone, and no one seems to remember seeing it near the point of impact. These two facts, although not conclusive, appear to indicate that Jill did, at some point, pull her reserve, but the pilot chute was unable to deploy the reserve canopy, because it immediately tangled with her left riser. The only piece that seems unusual, according to a friend of mine who was the first to get to Jill, and the one who inspected the canopy today, is that her reserve canopy was completely in the container when he found her. It is surprising that with the container open, and Jill almost vertical in freefall that the reserve canopy wouldn't have fallen out. When I spoke to Jill, she said that "in her mind" she pulled the reserve, but assumed that she hadn't pulled in actuality. I tend to think that Jill did have her head together enough to pull the reserve, she had done everything by the book up to that point. Dan Rossi B-#14030 Thank God for Miracles.