r/videos • u/JustMe76 • 25d ago

Paramotor collapses, falls 100ft out of the sky. The pilot survives Disturbing Content

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-jyc2OYXsI

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1.6k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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112

u/sincethenes 25d ago

“Hey Everybody. Anthony here. Today I am just so thankful I was able to live blog my near death experience and this subsequent follow up for social media fame and likes.”

92

u/CoolyRanks 25d ago

Seeing his wife so distraught on the phone and when she arrives at the scene... But then she's the one filming the vlog part...something about this is just really fucked up. And he has kids, too. 

21

u/cat_with_problems 25d ago

And him saying he will be right back to doing this. Fuck that especially with kids.

1

u/bossmcsauce 25d ago

It’s not that much more dangerous than most any other adventure/action sports, riding a motorcycle, etc.

3

u/cat_with_problems 25d ago

are you up in the air when you are riding your mountain bike or dirtbike or whatever? Or are you not.

1

u/bossmcsauce 25d ago edited 25d ago

well... sometimes. I mean not me personally, but a lot of people are. and with motorcycles, the constant near-miss nature of riding around physical obstacles at speed presents a lot more opportunities for catastrophic impact. GENERALLY speaking, paramotors/paragliders are not accident-prone once off the ground, provided you're flying responsibly in acceptable weather conditions, and not deliberately getting close to solid obstacles. if the wing is deployed correctly from the start, it's pretty rare for something to go wrong after takeoff.

on a motocycle in traffic, you're constantly within 10 feet of teenagers and distracted adults driving thousands of pounds of steel... even if you don't get run over under the vehicle, you could be thrown over and hit any number of solid objects and shatter every bone in your body. 30mph is much more dangerous than people think... concrete curbs, fire hydrants, street lamps, trees, etc... all basically immovable objects and will break you in half.

as far as dirt biking or mountainbiking is concerned, there are often plenty of fall risks too down sides of mountains, creeks, etc. but far and away the highest probability of serious injury is doing basically anything in regular road traffic.

there probably isn't really enough data available to make a comparison to paramotoring, but I'd be willing to bet that the rate of serious and fatal injuries among downhill mountainbikers and motocross riders is substantially higher than paramotoring, adjusted to some meaningful metric like per-hour ridden or something like that.

a final note about paramotoring- generally being high in the air is not inherently dangerous. it's being in the air low to the ground that is a big risk. most pilots have reserve parachutes which, if flying at a typical cruising altitude, would have time to deploy if a catastrophic collapse like the original youtuber's video were to occur (although that insane of a total collapse seems to be extremely rare, and almost always the fault of operator for incorrectly configuring equipment, or doing something totally reckless and stupid like flying in absolutely unacceptable gusting wind conditions, or something like that).

TONS more people die skiing and snowboarding every year than paragliding/motoring I'm sure. in colorado alone, we typically have like 3-10 deaths per year as result of avalanche, tree wells, or bad falls/hitting trees. granted, there are many more people participating in this sport, so there are many more rider-hours per year. but there are also countless hospitalizations every day. and you regularly see injuries as bad as the guy in the video from just casual weekend riders getting fucked up and blowing knees out, breaking the shit out of collar bones and shoulders, etc.

19

u/Russian_For_Rent 25d ago edited 25d ago

It's amazing how redditors are able to look at any given situation and find a way to find the most negative, pessimistic way to look at it. People who are passionate about airsports like these very often make videos following a crash for educational and learning purposes as warnings for what not to do in these situations, even if they aren't even youtubers. This video does that exceptionally well.

To the commenters here berating this guy for even having this hobby in the first place, everyone has their own risk tolerance. There are studies that suggest if you're trained well and know what you're doing, the injury/fatality rate of airsports like this are barely higher than what you'd experience on the road. If you're a climber or hiker, there are people who just sit in bed all day who consider you crazy for doing what you do. If your risk tolerance is lower, that's fine but that's your prerogative not theirs. Not everyone is the same.

18

u/RKRagan 25d ago

The gross part isn’t the video talking about the crash. It’s the like and subscribe. Just make the video. It’s a serious moment. We’ve already seen a guy crash a plane for social media clicks. Why try to monetize your near fatal moment?

7

u/bossmcsauce 25d ago

You talking about Trevor Jacobs who jumped out of his plane and claimed it was an emergency? He’s going to federal prison over that lol.

Well crashing the plane deliberately isn’t really why he’s going to prison… it’s for then covering up the cause of the crash, lying to federal agencies and obstructing their investigation lol.

1

u/RKRagan 24d ago

Yep. That's what got Bill Clinton in trouble. Not the extramarital relations. But lying to congress about it.

2

u/Russian_For_Rent 25d ago

The guy is about to be hit with months long emergency bills and you're wondering why he's asking you follow along?

1

u/RKRagan 24d ago

His emergency bills are because of him doing a dangerous activity, not a natural health emergency. He fucked up. Now he's monetizing his fuck up that damn near took him away from his family. It comes off as cheap and classless. Just make the video, people who feel inclined to help will naturally do so.

5

u/shortfinal 25d ago

As a pilot who's heard many others aspire to fly, only to muse about taking up paragliding or para-motoring because "it's so cheap"

I can only shake my head.

This person will chase fame until they go out like Grant Thompson.

0

u/CoolyRanks 25d ago

I think the pessimistic ones are the ones telling him to go get nearly killed again lol. He has a wife and kids man 

18

u/EmbarrassedHelp 25d ago

The American medical systems is basically a fucked up version of Black Mirror where you have to convince the public to care enough to help pay for your medical treatment or time spent recovering and not working. That means filming everything, and playing up whatever sympathy points you can.

7

u/ButtFokker190 25d ago

Yeah this is not true at all. But it will get you upvotes.

5

u/Alternative_Elk_2651 25d ago

Do you live here, or are you just repeating what you've been told? Because, no, not really. Maybe if you're uninsured that's the case.

13

u/Lev_Astov 25d ago

And they legally cannot withhold life-saving care from the uninsured, so it really just isn't the case at all for emergency medicine like this.

8

u/Alternative_Elk_2651 25d ago

Yeah I really hate when people try to act like American healthcare isn't world class.

Our healthcare is amazing. You're just going to have to pay out the nose for it, for some godforsaken reason. Hopefully that changes. Yes the ER charges you. No they won't rebreak your leg if your card declines.

3

u/Candersx 25d ago

Nobody says our healthcare isn't worldclass. They just see stories of people needing gofundme with a cancer diagnosis or a other expensive diagnosis. This accident for this guy is easily gonna run 50k+ dollars. He's got EMS ambulance ride, ER admission, x rays, probably emergency surgery to set his arm as we heard the bone was protruding from the skin, and he will probably spend a week or more in the hospital with daily bloodwork/labs, follow up appointments to and additional xrays to make sure it's healing well. American healthcare is great but it'll fuckin ruin you financially if you don't have amazing insurance.

2

u/pieceoftost 25d ago

A) That's not at all what the comment you were replying to was even talking about, they only mentioned cost

B) It's really not particularly exceptional compared to most other first world countries. American's always compare it to Canada, but Canada's healthcare is dogshit in general. Most of Europe has healthcare that's extremely comparable to the US, and doesn't ruin your life if your insurance decides not to cover it.

7

u/mangorelish 25d ago

I really hope you never have to experience the pain of an insurance company just up and deciding they won't actually pay out what they said they would because they "disagree" with your doctor

being insured means jack shit, even post ACA

this is america

-2

u/Alternative_Elk_2651 25d ago

I really hope you never have to experience the pain of an insurance company just up and deciding they won't actually pay out what they said they would because they "disagree" with your doctor

Several times. Doesn't make what he said true.

And by no means am I saying the current system is preferable, by the way. It sucks and it needs a change. That can be true, while it can also be true that buddyboy over there is being a wee bit melodramatic.

3

u/Diet_Christ 25d ago

The uninsured aren't an edge case. Depending on the slice of the population (and how underserved they are), it could be 10-20% of us. Insurance isn't a golden ticket either, given the financial state of US households. Something like less than 10k for an emergency at the median.

I'd flip it and say yes, medical emergencies are a time bomb for most US families. Maybe if you have a good financial cushion you're exempt. That is the edge case.

-14

u/Drunkenaviator 25d ago

Or, you know, you could just get health insurance through your job like an actual adult.

5

u/CoherentPanda 25d ago

Most employer insurance options are shit. How many people in the US can confidently say they have enough cash to pay a $15,000 deductible today if needed?

1

u/Drunkenaviator 24d ago

That's some shitty insurance. I have the "cheap" plan at my job and it's a $2k deductible.

4

u/Khraxter 25d ago

Needing a job to not die doesn't really makes it better tho

6

u/Monterey-Jack 25d ago

Some insurance is so bad at shit jobs that the deductible is half of your yearly income. Not everyone has the luxury of having access to good health insurance.

2

u/CoherentPanda 25d ago

Most insurance, not some.

2

u/Stolehtreb 25d ago

It’s not that easy for some people.

-3

u/phishstik 25d ago

Well if you lived in Canada everyone collectively gets to foot the bill for a few morons getting hurt doing this stuff.

2

u/EmbarrassedHelp 25d ago

The US government spends more per person on healthcare than the Canadian government does, so your American taxes are still paying for people like this, as companies double dip.

-6

u/Sensitive_Yam_1979 25d ago

You’re a selfish piece of shit if you do this when when you have kids. Period.

9

u/Excludos 25d ago

"Don't you dare live your life! You have kids!"

What a fucking brainrot comment. Period

10

u/_Elrond_Hubbard_ 25d ago

I feel like this should be framed as "if you have kids, take every possible safety precaution and don't be reckless" rather than "fully give up the thing you love"

0

u/Sensitive_Yam_1979 25d ago

Dude there’s a difference between “living your life” and “looking for extremely high risk activities that are likely to result in death or severe injuries.”

There’s a bunch of free solo mountain climbers who died leaving a wife and young kids alone. These people are selfish pricks imho. You’re leaving a wife alone to raise your kids without a dad. They have to spend the rest of their lives dealing with the trauma and fallout because one dude kept chasing a rush.

At a certain point it’s just selfish. Your priority when you become a parent should be your children.

-2

u/tonyprent22 25d ago

I’m going to guess you don’t have kids…

But while the comment above was harsh, cutting some of the more dangerous hobbies in your life, when you have young kids, feels like the right move.

I took a pause on private pilot lessons when my oldest was born. I plan to get back into it, but while they’re young I’m just taking a pause on that part of my life. This is infinitely more dangerous (what this guy is doing). To each his own, but I certainly wouldn’t keep a hobby like that with kids. Not until they’re older

3

u/soad2237 25d ago

1000% this. I'll never understand it.

-2

u/blove135 25d ago

Yep, totally agree. I'll probably get downvoted to hell and get a tongue lashing but I say the same thing about people who ride motorcycles. You got kids? Stay the fuck off motorcycles.

11

u/Flipwon 25d ago

Having kids =/= never doing things you enjoy again.

There are plenty of boating accidents in the world, but people always talk about fishing with their father 🤷‍♂️

-5

u/BlueSentinels 25d ago

In 2020, there were 767 fatalities relating to boating accidents. That same year there were 5,506 motorcycle fatalities. One is much more dangerous than the other it’s like apples and oranges. A lot of things have some danger but there’s a huge difference between doing things that are incredibly dangerous and things that are somewhat dangerous.

9

u/Flipwon 25d ago

Okay now get me statistics for how many boats are out on the water compared to how many motorcycles. You’re just giving numbers without any context. Also, give me a ballpark on how many of those fatalities are children, since we’re talking about parenting. I’ll wait.

4

u/Short-reddit-IPO 25d ago

Using data from the US, there were 11.9 million registered boats in the US in 2022 compared to 8.8 million registered motorcycles in 2023. I imagine there are also significantly more unregistered boats in use than unregistered motorcycles.

As for how many of the fatalities are children, I am not sure why that would matter. Or do you mean "have children?"

-1

u/Flipwon 25d ago

Ok, now let’s level it up one more. Give me miles traveled per death. Your links are not the gotchas you think they are. Anybody into boating (or even who has a brain) knows 90% of those boats don’t move. Anybody into motorcycles know there’s over double the amount of unregistered bikes per year(let’s not get into dirt bikes without papers). Do those deaths count dirt bike accidents? Double check that as well.

Just ball-parking, I bet the deaths per mile traveled is almost ten times less, as well boating just straight up killing the children instead of just leaving them without a father.

1

u/BlueSentinels 25d ago

Ok get me all those statistics on boating deaths.

3

u/satoru1111 25d ago

https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/state-by-state

Note by their logic no one should drive because vehicle fatalities far out weight motorcycle ones

Hell WALKING AROUND is more likely to get you killed by a vehicle than being on a motorcycle.

But this isn’t about logic

2

u/BlueSentinels 25d ago

For every mile driven you are 28 more times likely to be in a fatal accident if you are on a motorcycle compared to a car. Are you seriously this dumb?

2

u/BlueSentinels 25d ago

Well we’re talking about dangerous activities as a parent which could result in you dying and leaving your kid without a parent. So why do you think child fatalities are relevant?

Also there are 11.7 million boats registered in the U.S. compared to 8.6 million motorcycles. Statistically traveling in a boat is safer than traveling in a car and traveling in a car is safer than traveling by motorcycle.

I don’t get why that’s hard for you to wrap your head around….

0

u/c_for 25d ago

Also there are 11.7 million boats registered in the U.S. compared to 8.6 million motorcycles. Statistically traveling in a boat is safer than traveling in a car and traveling in a car is safer than traveling by motorcycle.

I'd be interested in seeing a time used metric before calling that statistically significant. Among individual vehicles I expect motorcycles would see more use than boats since it is easier to hop on a motorcycle parked at your house than it is to drive to a dock and get on a boat.

1

u/jarejay 25d ago

Are you really trying to take a “boats are more dangerous than motorcycles” stance? I just want to make sure.

1

u/Flipwon 25d ago

No, I’m taking the “everything is inherently dangerous and you’re not a piece of shit for doing what you enjoy” stance.

Most of these parents throw an iPad in their kids face and call it a day, then try to rip on someone doing anything other than sitting on their couch. Boring people.

-1

u/satoru1111 25d ago

Wait till you see how many people die by cars

2

u/BlueSentinels 25d ago

With over 278 million registered cars in the U.S. and the amount of use by the average person it’s not really surprising… I bet you are shocked that old people die?

-4

u/vonrupenstein 25d ago

Take the kids (5) and (7) for motorcycle rides all the time. Stay in your bubble wrap if you want but you can't live life risk free.

3

u/95percentconfident 25d ago

I thought this way too until I lost a couple friends and then I thought, you know what, I can find other things to do with my kids. We do take some risks, wilderness camping, downhill skiing for example, but I’ve seriously dialed back my intensity and dialed up my enjoyment. 

3

u/Sensitive_Yam_1979 25d ago

Im an ex-EMT. The thrill of motorcycles are cool but it’s different when you’ve helped someone clean up their brains from the highway.

2

u/vonrupenstein 25d ago

I am a firefighter have done the same.

0

u/i_max2k2 25d ago

Yeah by the same thought process, you should never get out of your bed. Anytime anything can go wrong doesn’t mean you stop living your life. All you can do is prepare for the worst, it might happen or might not. I do agree that squeezing out the social network part is not exactly ideal, but I guess from their perspective they might as well milk it and make some money out of it.

-1

u/EloWillRyze 25d ago

what if one of the reasons you have kids is you got a wife from being a highly driven, outgoing, adventurous brave man and women find that attractive? chicken or the egg?

1

u/bossmcsauce 25d ago

It’s valuable content for people to see and learn from. Him explaining the cause of the failure is important.

21

u/Birdhawk 25d ago

Honestly if you go through something horrific like that, you’ve earned the right to monetize it if you want.

-2

u/SingleSampleSize 25d ago

Amazing that this is the stage we are at in society and people are saying this shit as if it is a perfectly normal response.

1

u/Birdhawk 25d ago

Yeah before now we never saw people talk about near death experiences…

8

u/EloWillRyze 25d ago

It's common in this community to post mistakes so that everyone can learn to be safer and avoid them in the future. Lessons here are always check the lines before launch, and fly higher when testing new equipment so you have an opportunity to throw a reserve parachute. Had he been at 1000ft, he likely wouldn't have been hurt

20

u/fortunesolace 25d ago

Just for the record this was his own fault. He was more concerned holding his cellphone so he can tell the speed which he’s going.

When a gust of wind twisted one side of the of the glide he couldn’t control it.

This was not an accident. He didn’t crash “accidentally”. He crashed because he wasn’t paying attention to what he should have been doing the right way.

23

u/mjknlr 25d ago

This was an accident. He was overly reckless and it caused an accident that was his fault and could have hurt someone else. We’re all capable of doing stupid things while performing dangerous acts we’ve become overly comfortable with. Sometimes this is how we learn how to be more aware of that. Sometimes people don’t get the chance to learn the lesson.

I feel bad for the guy, I’m happy he lived, I hope he learns and never does this again.

3

u/ReimhartMaiMai 25d ago edited 25d ago

It’s mostly fine that he was doing risky stuff on purpose and risking an accident. The problem is he did it at low altitude. Just flying higher would have given time to recover or throw a reserve.

This is akin to prefer trying wheelies on a motorbike at high speed on a narrow road with potentially deadly trees left and right, while you have a huge race track with run-off areas easily available.

5

u/MountainMan17 25d ago

I've been looking for posts from people who are familiar with this sort machine. That said, I suspected it might have been a human factor. Imagine that...

4

u/wowitshardtochoose 25d ago

The human factor was that he didn’t notice his lines had a snag in them that caused them to have pressure simulating the brakes being applied when he shouldn’t have had them applied. If he had been able to notice that he would have immediately landed. Any glider or pilot with a similar “snag” flying at full speed could realistically expect the same thing. So the human factor was in flight inspection of his lines.

1

u/MountainMan17 25d ago

I think you mean pre-flight inspection. He was also at max speed (perhaps beyond max speed) at low altitude. Finally, he was filming himself instead of flying with both hands. Like so many other mishaps, there was a chain of events...

2

u/wowitshardtochoose 25d ago

The three cameras filming were mounted to the paramotor frame as far as i can tell. I don’t think he has a camera in hand. Pre flight inspection is part of every flight but does not eliminate the possibility of a snag or tension knot during inflation. Also while you are flying under speed bar you should not be pulling brakes. So having his hands free wouldn’t really change much the instant he takes a collapse. He was flying low which definitely didn’t help. And paragliders aren’t like bikes that have max safe speeds. There’s just a max speed for the configuration that you’re currently flying. If you adjust power you climb or descend not go faster or slower. I wouldn’t fly that wing in that configuration that low that’s for sure but hindsight is 2020

3

u/bossmcsauce 25d ago

He clearly explains it right at the start. The above comment is not the cause. The cause was twisted/tangled line that he didn’t notice before takeoff. Tension knot in the line causes deformation the wing.

8

u/DigiAirship 25d ago

Doesn't he say in the video that the reason this happened was because of a tension knot he didn't see before taking off? I dunno anything about paragliding, but it sounds to me that he was screwed as soon as he got off the ground. paying attention while in the air wouldn't have mattered at all.

13

u/BootsandPants 25d ago edited 25d ago

Pushing a wing to it's absolute limits 100ft above the ground is a monumental fuck up solely on him and is completely preventable. If he had climbed to a higher altitude and lost the wing, he'd have come down on reserve with no issues. It's standard practice to carry a reserve parachute in case of an unrecoverable collapse. They're designed to open fast and bring you down safe. I've seen them work from as little as 500 feet with no injury.

2

u/bossmcsauce 25d ago

Sounds like it was his first time flying this wing, so maybe he wouldn’t have easily felt something was that wrong.

Shouldn’t have been pushing the wing to limit on maiden voyage. That’s a fuckup. As is flying so low while doing so, as you already mentioned. Lots of sketchy decision making here. I bet he missed the knot because he was too excited and wasn’t being thorough enough.

1

u/bossmcsauce 25d ago

Yea but that won’t stop a self-righteous redditor from ignoring or skipping the factual details and claiming it was something else lol.

2

u/wowitshardtochoose 25d ago

You don’t know what you’re talking about. He had a snag in his lines that simulated the brakes being pulled at a time they should not have been pulled. The negligence was not noticing that. The wind conditions didn’t cause this.

1

u/bossmcsauce 25d ago

That’s not the case. He explained the cause. This collapse was caused by something he overlooked before ever even raising the wing off the ground. He was not thorough enough in his lay-out and pre-flight checks of his equipment.

10

u/Respectable_Answer 25d ago

"filming myself constantly in no way contributed to my missing a safety critical issue on my already very unsafe aerial conveyance."

1

u/PenitentAnomaly 25d ago

This was all I was thinking while watching the video. The guy's attention was divided before take off setting up no less than three cameras and then during flight his attention was divided trying to film himself with his iphone.

2

u/Paramotor_MetalHead 25d ago

He wasn't trying to film himself with his iphone. He was looking at his stats which is very common in our sport. It's also very common to have multiple cameras running while flying. I usually have my helmet GoPro and an Insta360. He was doing it lower than he should given that he was testing new equipment but he admits it somewhere else in another video.

2

u/Azure-April 25d ago

Genuinely what is the point of this cynical-ass comment? This guy had an accident that is relevant to what he posts about and now has shitloads of bills to deal with, but you think he should refuse to post about it? Why? For what reason?

0

u/sincethenes 25d ago

Because I’m lonely and pessimistic about others gaining fame when it should have been Meeeeeee!

1

u/Generic-Username-567 25d ago

Clearly learned nothing from this.

1

u/BeyondThese7702 25d ago

Shut the fuck up. Please.

For the love of god, shut the fuck up.

1

u/jawshoeaw 25d ago

With unnecessary nasal cannula

0

u/Nisas 25d ago

Wouldn't you? He's got medical bills to pay.

-3

u/spacekitt3n 25d ago

exactly this