Quadriplegic man dies in Mont. skydiving accident

I'm not trying to be an asshole here, but as a quadriplegic, there is a long list of things you should probably refrain from doing. Swimming, probably a bad idea. A mixed martial arts cage match should be avoided. Tight rope walking, also not good. But at the very top of the list would be skydiving.

You know this guy didn't have the physical ability to do this on his own. Whoever thought it was a good idea to facilitate this isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. At 125 jumps he had beaten the odds for a long time, but the odds will always catch up with you. Even the best equipment can malfunction and when you aren't able to use your backup system due to a physical limitation, you should probably be doing something different.

Whether we want to admit it or not, we all have limitations. Learning to live with those can mean the difference between living to 100 or dying at 27...

The Sacramento Bee

KALISPELL, Mont. -- A quadriplegic man with five years of skydiving experience died in a weekend skydiving accident in northwestern Montana, Flathead County officials said Monday.

Sheriff Chuck Curry said Zack Fogle, 27, of Kingston, Wash., died Saturday afternoon when his parachute failed to open after a jump at the 44th annual Lost Prairie Boogie, a 10-day skydiving event near Marion that typically draws hundreds of participants.

Fogle had limited mobility in his extremities after being struck by a car in high school, but had a custom-built parachute and was certified as a skydiver, Undersheriff Jordan White said. Fogle had completed more than 125 jumps and had participated in the Lost Prairie Boogie before.

The accident happened on Fogle's his first jump at this year's event, White said.

An investigation found Fogle failed to manually deploy his primary or emergency parachutes, and an emergency deployment mechanism that would have released his emergency chute as a fail-safe had not been properly activated prior to the jump.

"His equipment was determined to be current in inspections and service and was in proper working order," Curry said in a news release.

White said he learned that Fogle also had a custom motorcycle built to accommodate his disability.

It is the second consecutive year that a skydiver has died during the Lost Prairie Boogie. Last July, Garl "Mike" Newby, 57, of Colorado Springs, Colo., died after his main parachute became entangled with another man's chute. Officials said he removed his main chute, but did not have enough time to deploy his reserve chute.