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Video: Man on glider hangs on for life after pilot forgets harness

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Video: Man on glider hangs on for life after pilot forgets harness

Switzerland - The footage appears to be filmed in Interlaken, Switzerland.

Published: Wed 28 Nov 2018, 10:38 AM

Updated: Wed 28 Nov 2018, 1:02 PM

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It was a near-death experience for a Florida man when his hang-gliding pilot forgot to hook him on a safety harness, leaving him hanging onto a metal bar for over two minutes.
The terrifying video clip shows Chris Gursky, who was holidaying in Switzerland with his wife, clinging onto a metal bar of the glider as the pilot desperately tries to steer with one hand to land safely to the ground.
Gursky, auto-parts manager and photographer, took off from a 4,000 feet mountain edge when he realised his safety harness was not hooked onto him. 
The heart-stopping video shows Gursky, who was hang-gliding for the first time in life, hanging on for two minutes and 14 seconds as the glider glides over mountains and several houses. 
According to reports in Daily Mail, it was the couple's first day of holidaying in Switzerland when the incident took place. "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 was quoted as saying in Good Morning America. 
Narrating his scary flight in a Youtube 'Swiss Mishap', Gursky said that he tightly gripped onto a metal bar of the glider with his left hand and held onto the pilot's back with his right as they glided over trees and fields. "I just locked on and held on as long as I could," Gursky said. The video also shows the pilot trying his best to lower the glider but has trouble manoeuvring it and instead the glider goes higher.
"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.
 As they begin to descent, Gursky clings to the pilot's leg but starts to lose his grip on the metal bar. Eventually, when they are close enough to the ground to let go, Gursky leaves his grip. 
The tourist tore his left bicep tendon and had to have surgery on his right wrist after it suffered a distal radius fracture from the impact of dropping to the floor. In his video, Gursky said: "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. He was trying to make a beeline to the landing field as he knew what the situation could bring."
He further added: "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".
The footage appears to be filmed in Interlaken, Switzerland.



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