Amazing escape of paraglider sucked 32,000ft into storm

[mc_squared]

Amazing escape of paraglider sucked 32,000ft into storm

 

Last updated at 14:22pm on 16th February 2007 Comments (2)

Lucky to be alive: passing out saved Ewa

 

 

 

A German paraglider had a incredible escape after flying unconscious for nearly an hour covered in ice when a storm pulled her to an altitude higher than Mount Everest.

Ewa Wisnierska, 35, survived lightning, hail, minus 40-degree temperatures and oxygen deprivation during her ordeal.

VIDEO: Ewa recalls her ordeal

At one point she passed out, reaching an altitude of 32,000 feet - near the cruising height of a jumbo jet.

Ms Wisnierska says experience told her she had no chance of survival, but a doctor told her that blacking out had saved her.

She said: "It was because I got unconscious, because then the heart slows down all the functions. It saved my life."

Describing the violence of the storm in Australia, she said: "You can't imagine the power - you feel like nothing, like a leaf from a tree going up.

"I was shaking all the time - the last thing I remember it was dark, I could hear lightning all around me."

She added: "I knew I was in the middle of the thunderstorm and I could not do anything. From the theory, I knew the chances to survive are almost zero, I knew I can only have luck, I can't do anything — and I got it."

Ms Wisnierska had been training for the Paragliding World Championships when she was sucked into the storm on Wednesday.

The champion sportswoman said her survival was like "winning Lotto 10 times in a row". However, a Chinese man who flew into the same storm near Manilla in northern New South Wales did not share Ms Wisnierska's luck.

He Zhongpin, 42, was found 75 kilometres away from his launch site, and probably suffocated or froze to death after being sucked into the storm, hang gliding experts say.

[Texasluvsjonny]

damn! :stunned: