Paraglider doctor dies in France
A Kiwi doctor who worked on the ski fields in Queenstown has died during a paragliding accident in France.
Experienced paraglider Charlotte O’Leary was holidaying in Europe when the fatal accident happened last Thursday in Saint-Andr-les-Alpes in southeast France — one of the world’s most acclaimed paragliding sites.
NZ SKI chief executive Paul Anderson said O’Leary was an experienced emergency doctor who was coming back for her second season at Coronet Peak with the mountain’s medical rescue team.
“People are devastated,” said Anderson. “Losing anyone in these circumstances is very tragic and she was a really talented and valuable member of the medical team.”
O’Leary, who studied medicine at the University of Otago and worked at Hauora Taira¯whiti, previously Tairawhiti District Health, from 2017-19, had been living in Queenstown.
“Our sympathies go to the family — it’s tragic,” Anderson said.
It’s understood her body is being repatriated to New Zealand.
When approached by the Herald, her family declined to comment.
“We are aware of the death of a New Zealand citizen following a paragliding accident in France and are providing assistance to the family,” a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade said.
In 2015, another experienced Kiwi paraglider, Aaron Cooke, 38, died in a crash in the French Alps.
Cooke plunged to his death taking off the Argentiere Glacier on the Mont Blanc massif.
It was understood his foot struck a pinnacle of ice as he tried to pass between two hanging glaciers and he fell 30m to his death.
A paragliding partner alerted Chamonix search and rescue. Cooke was pronounced dead by emergency service workers at the site.