Gursky’s ordeal is a pretty impressive exercise in endurance, both physical and mental. And I think at that point, I really just tried to concentrate fully on hanging on as hard as I could, for as long as I could.” It was an absolutely beautiful day and I just looked and I was like, this is absolutely beautiful – and I’m going to fall to my death here.Īnd I kind of envisioned myself falling to the air. “At one point when I looked down, I pretty much saw that the trees were all changing colors. Watching the video is pretty stressful, so it’s impossible to imagine what was racing through Gursky’s mind during the ordeal. The video shows how Gursky grabbed onto the glider with his left arm, and scrambled with the right to hold onto the instructor, who was attached.Īn adrenaline rush - for the wrong reasons. I just remember realizing that the only thing holding me up from probably imminent death was my hands.” “I didn’t exactly know what was going on, what happened until it was way too late to either drop off or do anything about it. “It kind of went in slow motion when we took off,” he tells CNN Travel. Gursky’s wife took off successfully, and he was poised to follow. It was also their very first day in Switzerland, Gursky says, and it was a stunning day, the sun illuminating the dazzling panoramas of the Alps and the lush forests below. The couple’s hang gliding adventure in November 2018 was the first time either one of them had tried this particular air sport.
#Chris hang glider not attached zip#
On previous trips they’ve enjoyed zip lining, he says. Gursky and his wife Gail don’t shy away from heights and often enjoy aerial pursuits while on vacation. “But once once we left the ground I was just taken along and it was absolutely beautiful.” “The hardest point, I guess, was standing at the launch point – the same place I launched off the first time – and just looking down saying, ‘Alright, we’re going to do this again.’ “I said, ‘I want to do it, I want to get up there, I want to do it again,’ ” recalls Gursky, who lives in Florida. But while most people might be put off aerial adventures for good after such an experience, Gursky – undaunted – wanted to give it another shot.Īnd so, less than a year later, he was back, surveying the Alpine landscape, about to step over the ledge and go through it all again – albeit, attached to the harness this time round. Thankfully, he lived to tell the hair-raising tale. Yeah, you read that right: Gursky spent over two spine-chilling minutes hanging on for his life, the glider soaring high above the ground as Gursky gripped on with a single hand. In November 2018, while vacationing in Interlaken, Switzerland, with his wife, Gursky’s attempt at hang gliding went horribly wrong – the instructor forgot to attach the safety harness.
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