His body was dangling straight down from the glider-this definitely was not the correct position. But he was not hooked into the safety harness. Gilbert felt a gust of wind coming, and he and his hang glider were carried up and away, over the edge of the mountain and into the brilliant blue sky. And with the breeze kicking up, it looked as if he might be leaving the ground soon! As Nancy looked over at him, she noticed he had not secured himself back into his equipment. As he placed it on his head, he was still in the position for takeoff-and still unhooked. He knew he needed to wear it, so he unhooked himself from the hang glider-for just a second-to stretch as far as he could and grasp it. The helmet was in a position just out of Gilbert's reach. He, too, noticed this and tried to reach out and grab it before he left the ground. As he moved forward for his turn, Nancy realized he was not wearing his helmet. Jim had just flown off the launching pad, gracefully soaring from the mountaintop in the hazy sunshine. Another hang gliding expert and friend, Doug Rice, arrived at this time, planning to enjoy the sun and sky with the other pilots. After carefully checking everything, he got in place for takeoff. On this summer day, Gilbert followed his pre-flight routine perfectly while Nancy helped him set up the hang glider. Although Nancy had taken only a few courses in the sport, Gilbert and Jim were old pros, and between them, there was plenty of experience flying hang gliders. Gilbert and Nancy were meeting their friend, Jim Burton, who was another pilot and a fellow member of the hang gliding club to which they belonged. "A little still for this July day, but perfect for flying," thought Gilbert as they made their way to the launching site, past the thick forest, and up the steep slope to the top of the mountain. Jwas a typical North Carolina summer day, very hot with very little wind, when Gilbert Aldrich and his fiancée, Nancy Lumlee, drove up Sauratown Mountain to go hang gliding. It airs in syndication on Episode 218S: 911 Conference Call Hanging Hang Glider. I’ll be good if I never have to watch this again, because it’s making my skin crawl just thinking about it.218S Hanging Hang Glider is the first story from the seventeenth episode of Season 4, which aired on Februon CBS. He suffered a torn bicep and a broken arm that required surgery as a result of hanging on so long and the tough landing, but as he says to close the video “it beats the alternative.” It was still a rough landing, but the man is alive - somehow. Thankfully they managed to find a landing spot just seconds before the hanger lost his grip and crashed to the ground. The result was a 2 minute, 14 second nightmare where the dangling man thought he was going to die, losing his grip on the bar and the pilot. Initially you think this is probably going to be brief terror, but strong winds over the town of Interlaken caused the hang glider to keep soaring higher, no matter how much the pilot tried to bring it in for a quick landing. The video details precisely what happened, but the pilot forgot to hook the first-time rider’s safety harness to the glider. A hang glider in Switzerland had the horrifying ride of a lifetime over the weekend when he realized shortly after takeoff that his safety harness wasn’t attached to the glider.
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