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Paraglider cheats death
16/02/2007 14:04 - (SA)
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| German champion paraglider Ewa Wisnierska talks about her ordeal. (Northern Daily Leader, AP) |
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Canberra - A champion German paraglider
has survived being sucked into a thunderstorm in Australia and
carried to a height greater than Mount Everest in just minutes,
while a Chinese colleague died in the incident.
The German woman, Ewa Wisnerska, 35, was carried to 9 144m while flying near Tamworth, 280km northwest of Sydney, in a practice run on Thursday ahead of world championships next week.
"She was encased in ice all over her body and her harness
and equipment. It's minus 40 to minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus
58 Fahrenheit) at that altitude," event organiser Godfrey
Wenness told Reuters on Friday.
A 40-year-old member of the Chinese team died in the sudden
storm, which struck while around 200 people were in the air on
a routine afternoon flight.
Wisnerska, a member of the German team, had been carried to
a height greater than the 8 850m Mt Everest
- an area known to mountaineers as the death zone for its
extreme cold - in just 10 minutes and was rendered unconscious
for almost an hour.
"There's no oxygen. She could have suffered brain damage.
But she came to again at a height of 6 900m with ice all
over her body and slowly descended herself," Wenness said.
Wisnerska was hospitalised with severe frostbite to her
face and blistering, but had since been released and was
recovering.
Sudden severe thunderstorms are common during the
Australian summer and routinely strike major cities with hail,
heavy rain and destructive winds.
Wisnerska had been trying to fly around the rapidly
developing storm front, but became trapped when two storm cells
merged, Wenness said.
A British team member earlier this month survived an attack
by two wild eagles which sent her canopy plummeting while
flying in the same area ahead of the championships.
- Reuters
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