A former skydiving instructor has revealed how his quick-thinking managed to save both his and his student's life after a parachute malfunction.
David Hartsock is a truly inspirational bloke who has somehow managed to find the 'silver lining' in the devastating accident which left him paralysed.
Despite dying three times, breaking the C4 and C5 vertebrae in his neck, having two collapsed lungs, and a pair of dislocated arms, he miraculously survived.
Advert
So did his student Shirley Dygert - which is all that Hartsock was bothered about when they were both plummeting towards the ground uncontrollably in 2009.
The tandem skydiving instructor was 'free-falling at 110mph' while he was strapped to the first-time jumper for the descent from 5,000ft in Texas, according to a GoFundMe page.
Hartsock had actually finished his shift for the day when he was told there was one last student to take out, as he told Inside Edition: "One quick jump, it's easy.
"Shirley was nice, I introduced myself and told her she was going to be safe."
Sadly, this was not the case - as when Hartstock deployed their parachute, the canopy became tangled, giving them a jolt which the ex-instructor compared to 'hitting a concrete wall'.
Advert
"It stunned me for a second, we were spinning," he recalled. "[I was like] 'Wow, what was that?' It's a bad opening and a total malfunction. I'm looking up at the canopy up there and go, 'What a mess!'"
He reassured Dygert that although they had encountered a 'little problem', he could handle it...however, things soon went from bad to worse.
"I ain't got this," Hartsock continued. "This is bad, this is very bad. Every second we're gaining speed and going around in circles."
Unable to untangle the first parachute, the instructor hung his hopes on their reserve parachute while being well aware he could be dealing with 'two messes' if this also became twisted up.
Advert
"And sure enough, it opened up and tangled around the other one," Hartsock said, explaining he then decided that all he could do from there was to try and save Dygert's life.
"I'm looking all over the ground, like, 'Okay, where we going to land?' You can hit a house, you can hit a barn, you can hit an airplane hanger, you can hit a barbed wire fence, a fence post.
"You can hit a tree, you can hit a cow, you can hit a horse. You can hit cow sh*t. But nobody wants to die in that."
Hartsock spotted a 'nice big open field to crash on' while he was extremely conscious of the fact that Dygert's son and husband were watching down below.
Advert
"She seemed relatively calm, surprisingly, and I found out later that she figured we were dead - she was not calm at all," he said of the first-time jumper. "She was praying the entire time."
Hartsock heroically decided to pull on the control toggles 'as hard as he could' to place himself underneath his student, which would hopefully break her fall.
Recalling what was running through his mind, he said: "That way I'll land and she'll land on top of me. I figured we're both dead anyways, but I might as well try this. At least one of us might survive.
"I'm thinking about trying to save her from dying in front of her family. I yanked down on those lines hard as I could, while I'm dislocating both arms."
The pair both hit the ground at approximately 40-60 mph, leaving them both 'stunned for a minute'.
Advert
Hartsock continued: "Then I heard Shirley and she goes, 'Can we get up?' I'm thinking, 'Ah, she's alive!' I told let's just wait for the ground crew to get here and that was it. That's the last thing I remember."
He woke up a month and a half later to an array of devastating injuries and faced a gruelling recovery, but although he says life as a quadriplegic 'is no picnic', he doesn't regret his actions on that day.
"Two months in ICU, two months at a long-term rehab facility and then another two months at Tier before I came home," Hartsock said. "The accident was 1 August, 2009, and the first time I came home was 10 February, 2010.
"[Dygert] lost partial function of the left kidney, she wound up having to have half five spinal fusions over the years. But other than that, she was able to return back to work. Scoreboard! Yeah!
"So for me, that was a win-win. Because my job was to take care of her and she was able to go about her life now, just like normal."
He said he wasn't 'bitter' about Dygert coming off better than him, as that's exactly what he intended.
"Let's start looking for the silver lining," he added. "And there's always a silver lining, no matter how bad it is. People find the story inspirational and write incredible things about how I'm such a hero.
"The positive side is the way it makes people feel, the way they interpret the story. And, you know? It's the price you pay for fame," he joked.
"Even positives or doing the right thing can have negative consequences. This is just a consequence of doing the right thing."
Hartsock has come on leaps and bounds since 2009, however, he now requires 24-hour care and has been struggling with the cost of medical supplies.
You can check out the GoFundMe page to help with the the skydiving instructor's health expenses here.
Topics: Extreme Sports, Health, US News
Olivia Burke