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Old 08-18-2007, 04:15 PM
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Default Parasailors Lofted?

I just saw this. Squalls effect all of us, kiters, sailors and parasailors. Hope the girls will be all right.

Two girls badly hurt in Pompano Beach parasailing accident
By Juan Ortega | Sun-Sentinel.com
5:57 PM EDT, August 18, 2007

Two teenage sisters were seriously hurt Saturday afternoon in a parasailing accident that made them crash into a building and two palm trees in Pompano Beach.

The girls, ages 15 and 16, whose identities weren't released by officials, were taken to North Broward Medical Center in serious condition, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.

One, if not both of them, suffered life-threatening injuries, said Sandra King, spokeswoman for Pompano Beach Fire-Rescue.

The girls were vacationing in Broward County from the Ocala area with a family friend, King said.

They went parasailing about 1 p.m. As a boat towed them, they were both harnessed to a parachute in the air.

With the tow rope still connected to their parachute, they drifted and crashed onto the second floor of the Beachcomber Resort & Villas, at 1200 S. Ocean Blvd, officials said.

"They hit the roof as if they hit the ground," King said.

The pulling also made the boat come ashore, and it may have not had power, King said.

According to King:

The girls were dragged across the building.

At some point, the rope broke.

The girls then fell from the building and struck a palm tree.

Then they struck a second palm tree, where they remained entangled until someone came to their rescue and used a knife to cut the harness and rope to free them.

Paramedics arrived. One girl was flown by helicopter to the hospital, and the other was taken by ambulance.

"This had to have been an absolute nightmare for these girls," King said.

From: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-0818...a_tab01_layout



The wind graph for the area appears below. A similar squall gust spike hit around half after 1 PM as well up the coast in Delray. It seems like it was a fairly large system.





I understand two girls were severely injured with one dying in Puerto Plata while parasailing in the same squall that lofted kiteboarder over 800 ft. in nearby Cabarete several years ago.

Some other parasailing accidents are described at:
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/04/14/St..._new_rul.shtml

It is unknown what exactly happened at this time but it could have been that the parachute was heavily loaded up in the squall gusts from the east and was pulled into shore with the girls aloft. Once the boat struck bottom the tow line continued to load up until something failed. Failure could have been at a weak point or by the line rubbing against something, it is hard to say at this point. I understand 1/2 inch braided spectra line is often used with a breaking strength of about 12,000 pounds.
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Last edited by ricki; 08-19-2007 at 10:30 PM.
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Old 08-19-2007, 06:47 AM
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Much more information and observations from the scene of this sad accident appear in the Channel 7 newscast at:
http://www1.wsvn.com/news/articles/local/MI58599/


Some comments about parallels between high wind problems in kiting and parasailing:

You can't operate a parasailing boat against the wind much into the 20 mph range with a parachute up. Beyond that the winch isn't powerful enough to pull the people down if the wind goes up very high. If it is blowing 30 to 45 mph, you are dragging downwind with the people aloft with no real option. The girls were doomed to injury before the boat even hit the beach because of this.

The wind was onshore, the boat was close to shore (Onshore and Poor Distance, sound familiar?), it was dragged on to the beach. Now anchored (just like in manlifting or if you grab a kiter in an immanent lofting) the parachute strums like crazy whipping the two girls all over the place. A man was put into the hospital from just this alone on the west coast a while back without hitting anything. Eventually the 1/2 inch 12,000 pound strength Spectra line broke. The girls were hurled at high speed downwind (just like a lofted rider getting slingshotted away from people trying to hold him). They hit building roofs and a tree breaking it (as kiters have done before more than once).

Ignoring bad weather was the primary cause with quite a few other lesser contributing factors. The same can be said about many kiting accidents and incidents.

Lots of guys have been messed up in storm related loftings in the area. I was treated to a highspeed dragging there over 125 ft. over ground in 2000 with a 5 m two line kite in a squall gust. Wake up time, weather counts whether you notice it or not.

and


Quote from Globe Kite:

"When i'm not kiting, I work on a parasail boat out of Ocean Cty, Maryland. Recently, we had a fairly new line snap in 20 knots of wind. Luckily the wind was blowing offshore, otherwise the parasailers would have been guaranteed a one way trip into a high rise....

The wind had picked up dramatically while we were letting line out and we decided to fly it out rather than bring them in and put up a smaller shoot. WIth about 500 feet of line out, a weak point gave out and the chute took off downwind. Luckily offshore. The couple in the chute hit the water but because of the strong wind speed the chute never deflated and continuted to pull them offshore. We immediately took off in pursuit and I - the mate - had to jump into an inflated shoot being yanked offshore by gusty winds. The riders weren't hurt. Had the winds been onshore you would have been reading about us in National news. It was wild how fast everything happened."
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Last edited by ricki; 05-20-2009 at 09:50 AM.
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Old 08-19-2007, 06:35 PM
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More info about the accident and current condition of the two sisters:

Updated: 4:58 PM

Sisters injured in parasailing accident, one in coma

By Juan Ortega, Macollvie Jean-François and Hemmy So | South Florida Sun-Sentinel
4:58 PM EDT, August 19, 2007

POMPANO BEACH - The impact of the two teenage girls smacking the tree was so forceful that it uprooted the 25-foot coconut palm out of the ground-- and left one child in a coma Sunday.

Critically injured parasailing crash victim Amber White is in the coma at Broward General Medical Center's pediatric intensive care unit, her mother Shannon Kraus said Sunday. Her sister Crystal is in fair condition at North Broward Medical Center, hospital authorities there said.

The sisters, 16 and 17, were vacationing from the Ocala area, said Sandra King, a spokeswoman for Pompano Beach Fire-Rescue. Both were hospitalized in critical condition; one, if not both, suffered life-threatening injuries, including head trauma, King said.


Related Links
Parasailors slam into building Video


The sisters were visiting Broward County with a family friend, King said.

Their family drove down from their North Florida home after the accident, arriving about 9 p.m. The mother, visibly distraught, asked family members to pray with her as they stood briefly in Broward General Medical Center's emergency room waiting area.

According to King, the girls went parasailing about 1 p.m. under gray skies. As a boat towed them, they were harnessed to a parachute.

The winds grew stronger, and the boat operator decided to head back to shore, officials said.

A gust then pushed the parachute toward land. With the tow rope still connected to the girls' parachute, the teenagers crashed into the second-story roof of the Beachcomber Resort & Villas, at 1200 S. Ocean Blvd., King said.

The tug of the parachute also dragged the boat ashore, the spokeswoman said.

With the parachute still pulled by the wind, the girls were dragged across the resort roof. At some point, the rope broke.

The girls then fell from the building, and caromed from one palm tree to another. They remained entangled in tree foliage until somebody with a knife came to their rescue, cutting the harness and rope to free them.

Paramedics then arrived. One sister was flown by helicopter to the hospital, and the other was taken by ambulance.

The Broward Sheriff's Office was investigating.

"This had to have been an absolute nightmare for these girls," King said. While relatives and friends waited anxiously for their recovery at the hospitals Sunday morning, fire-rescue and hotel grounds workers returned to the seaside Beachcomber Resort and Villas in the 1200 block of South Ocean Blvd., to literally pick up the pieces. Pompano Beach fire-rescue went over the scene, pointing at the shingled second-floor roof where the girls, tangled in the yellow parachute, toppled and were dragged by the wind before leaving them trapped in the palm tree.

Tree cutter Rick Lear said the tree snapped and had to be removed, as he lugged away the stump and branches, one of about a dozen surrounding the Beachcomber's outdoor pool.

"It's a shame," Lear said. "For them to have knocked down that tree, the wind had to be pretty strong. It's basically a freak of nature thing. All we can do is pray for them."

There is also a video clip with more info at:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/sfl...a_tab01_layout
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Old 08-19-2007, 07:44 PM
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I thought about listing this post as "OT." On reflection, I feel it isn't. It is very much wind related and a heads up to kiters. With the advent of flat kites some guys are less cautious about squalls, if they ever were in the first place. Within the past we've had a kiteboarder knocked into coma, into a building (twice?), into a concrete trash enclosure fracturing his neck and I also understand someone became a quadriplegic this year in yet another impact, all within a mile of the parasailing accident in Pompano ironically. Most of these accidents were squall related. In many ways the parasailing accident parallels a lofting, right down to the roof impacts and breaking a palm tree, in this case 25 ft. tall with about a 10 inch trunk.

The squall that lofted the rider in Cabarete over 800 ft. horizontally and 100 ft. high, also was stated to have hit two girls parasailing just up the coast off Puerto Plata. One was reportedly killed.

Flat kites aren't magic, C kites even less so, we need to pay attention to weather, that is the point. Only a fool would kite particularly when storms are common without doing proper weather planning and monitoring while out. All these avoidable accidents, just for want of a bit more care.



Here is yet more information from the Miami Herald:


Parasailing crash victim clings to life
The younger of two teenage sisters who slammed into a Pompano Beach hotel while parasailing over the weekend remained in critical condition Sunday.
Posted on Mon, Aug. 20, 2007

BY NATALIE P. McNEAL AND ROBBYN MITCHELL
nmcneal@MiamiHerald.com

J. ALBERT DIAZ/MIAMI HERALD STAFF
One of the two sisters injured in a parasailing accident Saturday is taken by helicopter from North Broward Medical Center to be transported to Broward General Medical Center.
Slide show | Parasailing accident
Operator error often causes parasail accidents
Parasailing mishap hurts teen sisters
Video | Witnesses describe parasail accident
While two sisters remain hospitalized after a parasailing accident, a family friend has taken on a new cause: to get more regulations for the parasailing industry.

Amber White, 15, was in critical condition Sunday night at Broward General Medical Center after the accident Saturday in Pompano Beach. Her sister Crystal, 17, is out of intensive care but still in the hospital, a spokeswoman at North Broward Medical Center said.

Holly and Jeff Lynn, their adult neighbors from Summerfield, near Ocala, took the teens vacationing with them to their Pompano Beach time-share resort on Thursday. On Saturday, the teens decided to go parasailing, although Amber was afraid of heights. The Lynns paid $180 for the two girls to ride.

Jeff Lynn is an extremely angry man now.

'If I could, tomorrow I would be everywhere they have these boats telling people, `Don't get on!' '' Lynn said in a telephone interview Sunday from Summerfield.

On Saturday, the teens decided to go parasailing, even though Amber was afraid of heights. The Lynns paid $180 for the two girls to take the ride.

Amber, who loved fashion and was extremely close to her big sister, suffered head trauma and broken bones.

The parasail outing began as a lark and turned into a horrific ordeal.

Saturday started out as a day of sun and fun for the teens, who attend Lake Weir High School in Ocala.

''My wife even asked if it would be too windy,'' Lynn said. 'The [boat] driver told us, `It will be fine. I've done 10,000 pulls and it is completely safe.' ''

Lynn's 10-year-old stepson had wanted to sail with the girls, but backed out at the last minute.

GUSTY WINDS

While they were in the air, the winds turned gusty, lifting the teens sharply. The rope that tethered them to the boat snapped. The sisters hurtled past the shoreline, spinning, and hit a thatched-roof shelter before they slammed into the second floor of the Beachcomber Resort.

''I was powerless. There was nothing I could do,'' Lynn said.

The Lynn family and the White girls are very close.

Lynn's 10-year-old son had a crush on his cute neighbors, who often baby sat for him. The girls' mother, Shannon Kraus, is out of work, so Holly Lynn took the girls shopping for back-to-school clothes. Because Amber loved fashion so much, Holly Lynn wanted to take her to the Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale during the vacation to inspire her.

The sisters did practically everything together, she said. They sat on the same side of the booth at restaurants and leaned their heads together while they were watching TV, Jeff Lynn said.

Jeff Lynn said the parasail boat's driver looked younger than 30 and the two mates were in their teens.

''They were fighting and screaming to get away from shore,'' said Jeff Lynn, who saw the incident from shore. ``But the boat just would not do what they wanted it to do.

Lynn said his wife Holly loved the girls. He said Holly was extremely upset about the accident.

''[Holly] got burned laying on the black asphalt while [Amber] was being put in the [medical] helicopter,'' he said. ``She couldn't move because she was so upset.''

Almost 40 minutes before the teens set out on their adventure, the National Weather Service issued a statement advising of gusty winds in the Atlantic Ocean.

STORM FORECAST

At 12:23 p.m., the National Weather Service said thunderstorms and a line of showers were capable of producing winds of up to 30 knots -- about 30 mph -- near where Crystal and Amber were parasailing.

The statement warned boats to ``stay in safe harbor or close to shore.''

The marine weather statement was in effect until 1:30 p.m., the service said.

Some in the parasailing business are deeply concerned about what happened Saturday.

''I would have definitely ceased operation,'' said Arrit McPherson, president of the Professional Association of Parasail Operators. ``Weather conditions are extremely important.''

Amber Carter, manager at American Watersports in Pompano Beach, shut down her parasailing business Saturday after she noticed the gusts. She said that typically, it is not advisable to go parasailing when wind speeds are more than 15 knots.

She, too, is upset about the accident.

WIND METER

''Our parasail captain has a wind meter on the boat and listens to the weather band,'' Carter said. ``Everything we do is governed by the weather. We keep informed.''

The operator of the parasail boat, the H.I.FLYER, Saturday declined to comment when he was called.

Wes Brent, who works at Atlantic Bridge Jet Ski in Pompano Beach, said there were other parasails out that day besides the one the teens were on. He said the accident was a ``freak thing.''

''It could have happened to anybody,'' Brent said.
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Last edited by ricki; 08-21-2007 at 05:26 AM.
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