Hang gliding: what could possibly go wrong?

Some times the things we do just for fun can go terribly wrong. Take Chris Gursky’s hang gliding ride for example.

Gursky, a native of North Port Florida decided, for whatever reason, that it would be fun to go hang gliding. For those of you who don’t know or who have never seen it done, hang gliding involves strapping your self to a triangular shaped parachute-like device and jumping off a cliff or a building, that sort of thing. The object is to then ride the winds like a kite while steering the hang glider with you arms until you finally touch down.

Now, for me, hang gliding is much like jumping out of a perfectly serviceable airplane with a parachute; it’s not something I’d do unless there was imminent danger of the plane crashing and the alternative was death or dismemberment. To give Gursky credit, however, he didn’t do this alone. He hired a trained professional to guide the hang glider while he was strapped on for the ride. Or at least he thought he was strapped on.

Turns out that someone, whether it was the ‘pilot’ or one of the ground crew, forgot to actually tie Gursky to the glider. Thus, only moments after leaping off a 4,000 foot Swiss mountain ledge into space, Gursky found himself dangling with one arm on the cross bar of the glider and the other one desperately clutching at the pilots pant leg. As usual in this modern age, everything was filmed so anyone watching the evening news was treated to the site of Gursky holding on for dear life.

Things got even more complicated when the pilot began to have trouble landing the glider which, despite his best efforts, started to actually rise. But the Gods were kind and eventually the glider managed to descend. Now, one can only imagine what was going in Gursky’s mind but it’s pretty safe to say he was a little frightened as he soared over the beautiful Swiss country side with all its tiny little farms and miniature green pastures far, far, far below. The fact that he also chose to let go well above the ground while still doing about 70 km/h is another indication he was glad to end the flight.

Luckily Gursky escaped relatively unscathed suffering only a broken wrist and a torn bicep tendon. At a press conference later, presumably after he changed his pants, he was also more forgiving than most of us would have been saying that the pilot was a good guy and did “all he could and more.” It is not recorded what he said about the person who was supposed to secure him to the glider.

As I said, we have all probably done things that weren’t properly thought through and that have landed us in somewhat dire straights but thankfully turned out well in the end. Not that it ranks with clinging to an aluminum cross bar 4,000 feet above the earth but I recall a time when my best friend, Tommy Mcgarry, and I decided it would be a good idea to crawl through a stone culvert that ran under the railway line near our house.

The culvert was just wide enough for your average 11-year-old boy to slide along on his stomach with about seven inches head room. You could also see the well known “light at the end of the tunnel” so it lacked the claustrophobic feel of complete darkness. I went first and things were fine. Unfortunately, Tommy, who was just that much wider than I, got lodged half way through. No amount of effort on his part could move him forward or backward until I backed in and he was able to grab my feet. With Tommy pushing and myself dragging we at last managed to extricate from the culvert. Not as exciting as hang gliding but just as scary at the time.

RE: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR WEDNESDAY 28.

Iwould like to assure my friends B&T Matthews that I am most definitely not a Climate Change denier like The Donald, nor do I share an ostrich-like “head in the sand” attitude with my one-time CBC colleague Rex Murphy. I was merely trying, inadequately apparently, to explain the angst of we non-scientific types faced with the array of dueling Phds who promise everything from rising water and scorching heat to a possible mini ice age. And yes, I do know the difference between climate and weather.