Her two parachutes didn’t deploy properly. Though mechanical failure was to blame, 47-year-old Joan Murray took the fall.

Arriving in North Carolina on September 25, 1999 to take her 37th jump, the bank worker and weekend skydiver was testing new equipment. At a height of 4 kilometres (2.5 miles), she jumped and her main chute failed to open.

Keeping her cool but twisting out of control, Murray pulled the cord on her backup chute. It partially opened but soon became tangled, sending the diver into a frantic free-fall. Murray didn’t stand a chance. The mother of twin girls hit the ground at 128 kph (80 mph).

In what seemed a final, insulting twist, paramedics rushed to the scene and found Murray’s shattered body covered with thousands of fire ants. They had to get rid of the vicious insects before they could recover her.

So imagine the absolute shock when the emergency workers found Murray alive. Most of her bones were broken, teeth and fillings had flown right out of her mouth, and the skydiver had more than 200 fire ant stings, but she was breathing.

It just didn’t seem possible. After all, the survival rate for a fall from a four-storey building is 50 per cent. Survivability plummets to just 10 per cent for a fall from a seven-storey building. And Murray had plummeted from a height equivalent to falling from a 1,100-storey building.

She was in a coma for two weeks and eventually underwent 20 reconstructive surgeries and almost 20 blood transfusions. As for how she managed to live on,........

© Sarnia Observer