Helmet Cam Shows Dying Skydiver's Heroism


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A skydive instructor died a "hero" as he tried to save his student's life by attempting to deploy his parachute before his own as they fell 13,000 feet from an airplane, police said.

Skydive instructor Orvar Arnarson, 41, and 25-year-old student Andrimar Pordarson died Saturday while training and vacationing at Skydive City in Zephyrhills, Florida, when neither of their parachutes were deployed during a jump.

Police have been reviewing helmet camera footage worn by one of the men and say Pordarson was unable to pull the chord on his parachute.

Arnarson, police say, desperately tried to reach Pordarson's chute before deploying his own, while plummeting toward earth at 120 mph.

"I can tell you that the video shows the instructor and the student in the airplane together. It shows them exit the airplane, it shows the free fall? It appears that the student doesn't pull his primary parachute and the instructor attempts to assist until the conclusion of the video," Pasco County Sheriff Det. William Lindsey said Tuesday.

"He was a hero. He died a hero," Lindsey added.

Both men had backup automatic activation devices, which deploy if the main parachutes are not opened in time. The backup chutes did not fully inflate before they hit the ground, T.K. Hayes, general manager and president of Skydive City, said Sunday.

Police are still reviewing the video, which they described as hard to watch.

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Try hanging on to a full grown person during a 'chute deployment - not easy, and it's possible to dislocate your shoulder(s). Whoever packed those 'chutes needs looking at.

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If the instructor had deployed his chute would it have saved them both?

I think the sudden up-pull would have yanked the guy away from the student.

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There is no up pull when you deploy a parachute, its just an effect of having someone continuing to freefall filming someone pulling a chute.

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hmmm, seems like a few errors where made:

1) in the case of a student not opening his own parachute the instructor will always pull it for him. In fact it's normal for that to happen for most students during their first two jumps. So that is not exceptional at all. It seems from the report like the instructor waited way too long to do it.

2) the automatic deploy was obviously misconfigured for the students chute. It should be set at a way higher altitude for students.

Stupid accident that could have been easily averted imho

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hmmm, seems like a few errors where made:

1) in the case of a student not opening his own parachute the instructor will always pull it for him. In fact it's normal for that to happen for most students during their first two jumps. So that is not exceptional at all. It seems from the report like the instructor waited way too long to do it.

2) the automatic deploy was obviously misconfigured for the students chute. It should be set at a way higher altitude for students.

Stupid accident that could have been easily averted imho

Thanks for saving the world once again, Captain Hindsight!

captain-hindsight1.png

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Thanks for saving the world once again, Captain Hindsight!

whatever, nothing to do with hindsight. I always set my AAD at a safe deploy height. That's not hindsight, it's foresight. And someone should have made sure that that was the case for the chute that poor student was using. But if you want to mock that and go with the, oh they are all heroes point of view, be my guest.

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whatever, nothing to do with hindsight. I always set my AAD at a safe deploy height. That's not hindsight, it's foresight. And someone should have made sure that that was the case for the chute that poor student was using. But if you want to mock that and go with the, oh they are all heroes point of view, be my guest.

No, they should have had foresight. Instead they are dead and we have your hindsight. I'm just poking at you and everyone whoever says "they should have..." Gotta have thick skin on the Internets.

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