REMARKABLE ESCAPE

Taranaki Daily News, 6 October 1931, Page 13

REMARKABLE ESCAPE

FALL OF 1500 FEET; PARACHUTIST’S ADVENTURE. Melbourne, Sept. 22. , "It sure was a crowded few seconds of glorious life, while it lasted,” said Stan. Thomas, the 25-year-oid parachut--Ist, through a mountain of bandages, splints and bedclothes, describing to-day how he fell 1500 ft. to the ground at Coode Island, near Melbourne, oh Sunday and lived to recall it. ‘‘The parachute was a bit damp when I jumped off and the fabric stuck and it wouldn’t open out when I pulled the cord. I remember saying to myeelf, as I jumped, ‘Well, let us hope it opens,* and I might have said it a few more times, if I had not been so darn busy trying to tear the stuck portions apart. Have you ever fallen sheer for tan seconds on end? "No! Well, take it from me, it’s an over-rated pastime. For the first five seconds you only average about 60, then you really get going, and dear old mother earth- comes sailing lovingly to meet you at a fair bat, I can tell you. “Houses seem to get bigger and grow spikey roofs, all of a sudden. Some of these novelists tell you that on occasions like this your whole life flashes through your mind—how you borrowed 5s from Bill Jones in ’26 and all the rest of iU Well, it’s all wrong. Perhaps I’m an unimaginative sort of cove, or perhaps I was too busy trying to get the parachute open to go into my past. “I got the fabric partly -unstuck just when I thought it was all oveyand then I got pulled up with a jerk which nearly stunned me. ‘Pulled up’ in hardly ths term, because I was, still racing to the earth. I kicked aut my legs so that I would be upright and running when I landed. That is all I can remember until I woke up in hospital.”