PG Accident at Edith's Gap

[Ward Odenwald]

To JohnM and others who where there when Bob crashed,

As an intro to those that haven't read the CHGPA email forum recently, several days ago a thread was initiated that provided rather "cryptic" descriptions of a potentially serious accident during a takeoff attempt at EG (see forum thread "Injury Mishap at EG"). For everyone to hopefully learn from Bob’s crash please explain “a wrong turn” as described in the email thread. As a HG pilot, I’m guessing that Bob was attempting a reverse PG launch and once his parasail inflated he rotated in the wrong direction before running into the wind and down the slot or maybe he was turning in the wrong direction once airborne? Plus, Bob has a family/last name and from what others have posted Bob has serious medical issues (who is Bob?). I’m guessing (no details in the email posts) that he didn’t drive himself home after the crash so please give us more information about what happened after the crash. How was his emergency handled? If a 911 call was made, how long was the response time and how long did it take for proper/qualified medical care to arrive at the crash site? These are not trivial details as we have all suffered through the anguish of when a rescue goes wrong!

We don’t need a formal report but his full name, and details about his rescue will help everyone now!

Ward

[Ward Odenwald]

Update: For those that do not have access to the email forum, Bob Finch posted this morning about what happened during his takeoff and details about his rescue. To say the least, he’s in “good hands”. Busted up but recovering. My read of his post indicates that VA rescue and the UVA trauma center contributed significantly.

Thanks for taking the effort to communicate what happened!

Ward

[markc]

Sounds like a serious accident, I sure hope that the pilot recovers fully, and will be back in the air soon!

Lessons learned are always good. Perhaps a club meeting would be the place to discuss the EMS response, any problems that occurred, how to deal with similar situations, and the like? Hopefully with input from those who were there, and perhaps with some benefit of hindsight...