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Pilot Saves Tourist’s Life as Paraglider Snaps in Mid-Air

A first-time adventure turned into a nightmare for a tourist in India, when the paraglider he had rented out for a ride snapped in mid-air. Luckily, the pilot saved his life.
Tourist goes paragliding, is saved by pilot when they fall after mid-air accident 6 photos
Photo: YouTube / Daily Mail
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Sadly for the pilot, identified by Metro as 22-year-old Purushottam Timsina, he died in the fall. Video of the accident was captured by the tourist, Gaurav Choudhary, on a selfie stick and shared on social media.

At the beginning of the ride, Choudhary is shouting for joy and smiling as he’s taking in the beautiful views of Kalimpong, West Bengal. Then, at one point, his smile turns into an expression of horror as he realizes something is wrong: one of the ropes of the paraglider had snapped off and they immediately begin to spin and lose altitude.

The pilot grabs onto and hangs to his passenger while trying to do something to bring the paraglider back on course. It takes only a few seconds for them to hit the ground, with the last frame in the video showing they had landed on the roof of a house and a piece of the paraglider is floating in the wind, stuck on power cables.

Metro says that Choudhary suffered only a broken leg. Timsina, on the other hand, took the full impact of the fall, landing on his back, with his passenger’s weight on top of him, and died from the injuries sustained. In doing so, he saved the man’s life.

Still, Timsina’s friends want answers and believe the accident could have been avoided. They filed a complaint with the police, and one of them is quoted as saying that “organizers ignored even basic safety measures. The pilot was not even wearing a helmet.”

“We are probing the incident and have registered an unnatural death case,”
Dhrubajyoti De, Kalimpong police superintendent, tells the media.

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About the author: Elena Gorgan
Elena Gorgan profile photo

Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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