For more than two minutes, a Florida tourist visiting Switzerland hung on for dear life when his harness was never attached to the hang-glider by his instructor pilot.
“For 2 Min. 14 seconds I had to hang on for my life,” Chris Gurksy said of the incident, The Daily Mail reported.
After he returned from his vacation in Switzerland, Gursky posted the video and the terrifying details online, which he calls his Swiss Mishap. Watch it below:
“My first time Hang Gliding turned into a near death experience as my safety harness was never hooked to the Glider. The landing was a rough one, but I lived to tell the story,” Gursky wrote.
Gursky had decided to attempt hang-gliding for the first time while on vacation.
The scene unfolded when Gursky and his pilot departed from a 4,000-foot mountain edge.
Almost instantly the pair knew something was not quite right.
The pilot is seen desperately trying to steer the glider while Gurksy clings to him and the glider.
‘I was just trying to stay calm, trying to hold on for dear life. I looked down once and I thought to myself: “This is it, I’m going to fall to my death. I’m a goner,”‘ Gursky said in a Good Morning America interview.
“I looked down once and I thought to myself, ‘This is it.'” An American tourist in Switzerland held on for his life when his instructor failed to attach his harness before their hang gliding flight. The man said he had to have surgery for a broken wrist. https://t.co/zPWb9iEnST pic.twitter.com/Yv3Rlrb5hM
— ABC News (@ABC) November 29, 2018
“I just locked on and held on as long as I could,” he said.
The pilot was trying to land but couldn’t control the glider. It started to go even higher and the video shows the pilot tightly holding Gursky with his left hand.
“I didn’t have much grip left in me, my hand was opening, I was slipping. I had his pant leg and that’s about it,” Gursky said.
Finally, the pilot was able to lower the glider to a point where Gursky could let go and live to tell about it. As Gursky lowered himself, he clung to the pilot’s pant leg before letting go.
“I remember looking down and thinking, this is it. I was losing grip with my right hand, that was holding onto a strap on the pilot’s right shoulder. The pilot grabbed my hand, but like in the movies, it was a slow motion slipping of the grip until my right hand slipped off and I grabbed another strap on his left side for a bit but this slipped off also,” Gursky said.
Gursky suffered from a torn left bicep tendon, and also had to have surgery to repair a broken wrist. Despite it all, he said that he thinks he will go hang-gliding again in the future.
