A 35-year-old skydiver survived an almost unimaginable 12,000-foot fall after she was knocked unconscious in midair and plummeted toward the ground at nearly 100 mph.
Holly Wiffen, a dental therapist from Okehampton, England, was taking part in a group skydive on Aug. 7 over Langar Airfield near Nottingham when the terrifying accident unfolded.
Wiffen was no beginner. She had completed roughly 425 jumps before the incident.
According to reports, she had just jumped from the plane at around 12,000 feet when another skydiver accidentally kicked her in the head.
The blow knocked her unconscious almost instantly.
With Wiffen unable to control her body or open her parachute, she began free-falling toward the ground.
Another skydiver realized something was wrong and desperately tried to reach her during the fall.
But as they dropped to around 3,000 feet, the other jumper was forced to open his own parachute for safety and could no longer get to Wiffen.
She kept falling.
Then, at roughly 1,000 feet above the ground, Wiffen briefly regained enough awareness to pull the handle on her main parachute.
Her emergency reserve parachute, which was equipped with an automatic activation device, then deployed at around 500 feet.
But instead of immediately making things safer, the second parachute created another major problem.
Both canopies opened at the same time and reportedly went into what skydivers call a “downplane,” a dangerous situation where the two parachutes pull in opposite directions and can dramatically increase a jumper’s speed toward the ground.
Wiffen was still descending at an estimated 40 to 50 mph.
She eventually crashed into a tree, which likely helped absorb some of the impact before she hit the ground.
Against extraordinary odds, she survived.
Wiffen suffered a broken leg and a fractured spine, but she escaped injuries that could easily have been fatal.
The entire horrifying incident was captured on GoPro footage.
Wiffen later said she remembers very little of the fall, although she does recall brief moments of semi-consciousness, including when she managed to deploy her main parachute.
The skydiver who struck her in midair later apologized.
Remarkably, the near-death experience has not convinced Wiffen to give up skydiving.
Despite being knocked unconscious thousands of feet above the ground, falling at extreme speed and then dealing with a dangerous double-parachute deployment, she said she plans to return to the sport after she recovers.
She even joked that without skydiving, she would be “so bored.”