Two women sustain life-threatening injuries while skydiving in Racine County on Sunday afternoon
Two women sustained life-threatening injuries while skydiving in Racine County on Sunday afternoon, according to the Racine County Sheriff's Office.
Shortly after 1:40 p.m., emergency personnel responded to Skydive Midwest, a skydiving facility located in the Village of Yorkville, for a rescue call.
A 28-year-old Racine woman and a 49-year-old Chicago woman were tandem skydiving.
Their parachute was deployed, but they lost control about 20 or 30 feet from the ground and crashed, the sheriff's office said.
Both women sustained life-threatening injuries and were taken by Flight for Life to trauma centers, the sheriff's office said.
According to Skydive Midwest's website, for tandem skydiving, a participant exits the plane at 14,500 feet in the air with a tandem instructor attached to them.
The two spend up to 60 seconds in freefall, reaching speeds of at least 120 miles per hour, the website said.
Once a parachute is deployed, they experience five to seven minutes of views of Lake Michigan, Milwaukee and Chicago, according to the website.
Contact Hannah Kirby at hannah.kirby@jrn.com. Follow her on Twitter at @HannahHopeKirby.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Women sustain life-threatening injuries in Racine skydiving accident
