Featured Image Credit: Zack D Films
Topics: US News
Simon Fearn
A shocking simulation shows what happened when a teenage girl suffered a nightmare scenario: a 3,000 foot plummet when her parachute failed to properly open while skydiving.
Makenzie Wethington, from Texas, had wanted to go skydiving for years, and her parents finally caved on her 16th birthday.
On 25 January, 2014, she was set to fulfil her dream with Pegasus Air Sports Center in Chickasha, Oklahoma - but things went horribly wrong.
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A simulation from Zack D Films shows how her parachute opened but failed to properly unfurl, resulting in her spiralling rapidly towards the ground.
She told press at the time: “I remember jumping out of the plane and looking up and seeing that there was a complication with the parachute and so I started kicking my feet like I was taught in the class and I looked up and it still wasn't fixing so I tried to pull the toggles apart.
“I just was not strong enough to fight off the wind. I just remember screaming and then I blacked out and I don't remember anything after that, for three days after.
“I know I was scared and I know that there was something very wrong. I think I was focused on how I could fix it and what I could do. I think I went into shock.”
Wethington suffered horrific injuries, including multiple bone fractures in her back, ribs, clavicle and pelvis. She also suffered bleeds to the brain and injuries to her internal organs, and broke a tooth.
So what went wrong? Well, following the accident, this was hotly debated in a negligence lawsuit Wethington filed against Pegasus Air Sports owner Robert Swainson.
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Swainson claimed that the lines of the parachute becoming twisted like in Wethington’s case was not uncommon, and she had been trained on how to act in this situation.
He wrote in a 2015 court document: “I have been convinced that the reason for her accident was that she did not follow all of the instruction that she received by myself prior to the jump.
“I believe that she panicked when things did not go exactly as expected and did nothing to correct it.”
A judge, however, disagreed and ruled in Wethington’s favour and awarded her $760,000 in damages.
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He said the teenager was not only given inadequate training, but supplied with a parachute ‘too small and fast for a person of her young age and relative experience’.
Pegasus Air Sports has since closed down, though Swainson said this was because he wanted to retire, rather than in response to the accident.
As for Wethington, though she was able to walk again without assistance five months after the crash, at the time of the lawsuit ruling in 2017 she still suffered from PTSD, panic attacks, nightmares, headaches and short-term memory issues. She also suffered from kidney infections every three months or so and had to be hospitalised regularly.
The latest update Makenzie provided was in 2020, when she announced she was awarded the Outstanding Graduate and Doctoral Student Award by Sam Houston State University, where she was studying medicine.
She wrote: “Thank you Jesus for this amazing second chance at life!!! I am determined to serve others and won’t stop until I’ve made a life He can be proud of. All Glory goes to God.”