Skydiver hits ground at 125mph - and survives

A skydiver fell 13,500 feet after her leg got tangled in a parachute - and survived.

Jordan Hatmaker, from Virginia Beach first tried out skydiving back in 2015 and fell in love with the thrill. She then decided to train for her licence that would allow for her to dive on her own.

But last year on November 14, Hatmaker suffered a terrible accident that is every skydiver's worst fear.

About ten seconds after her freefall, she pulled the cord to release her parachute, but it was scarily wrapped around her leg. Desperate to free herself, her leg was suspended in the air as she continued to plummet to the ground at a fast speed.

Hatmaker scrambled to find an alternative solution that would ensure her survival and was the reserve chute then automatically released.

“I had a high speed malfunction called a Horseshoe where the bridle wrapped around my leg. The main didn’t come out & my leg stayed suspended up in the air,” the 35-year-old explained.

With the release of the reserve cute, it jolted and was thankfully able to release the main canopy out of its bag. The two inflated parachutes flew away from each other and created a downplane that propelled her to the ground even faster.

"Everything happened really quickly," Jordan said. "I didn't have any thoughts because I was spiraling so I didn't know what was going on, I was just in strategy mode."

She remained was astonishingly able to remain conscious through the fall, but that made her all the more aware of her pain.

"First I tried to push myself off the ground, and when I couldn't move anything my first thought was I was paralysed and I was yelling that out," she said.

"I've never heard sounds like those come out of my body. I screamed bloodcurdling screams." The 35-year-old continued: "I hit with my left leg first and then I bounced off of my butt and faceplanted, and that's how I broke my back."

"There was just extreme burning through my lower back and down my legs," she added.

She is now in the midst of preparing for a summit of Mount Everest.

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