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Paraglider crash-lands near Pendle Hill

9:02pm Monday 30th May 2011 in News

A PARAGLIDER is being treated in hospital after crash-landing on a road near Pendle Hill tonight.

Lancashire Police said the man, who was flying a non-motorised hand glider, received arm and back injuries in the incident, which happened around 6.30pm.

Paramedics attended to the man at the scene. He was later taken by a North West Air Ambulance helicopter to Royal Blackburn Hospital.

A police spokesman said: "He overshot his landing area and ended up coming down on the road.

"We closed the road while the air ambulance took him to hospital."

Comments(18)

carrman2 says...
9:31pm Mon 30 May 11

These dangerous sportsmen should get a bill for air ambulance when doing this kind of activity, It costs a fortune to run this valuable service Funded by mostly charitable folks of the County

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useyourhead says...
10:23pm Mon 30 May 11

carrman2 wrote:
These dangerous sportsmen should get a bill for air ambulance when doing this kind of activity, It costs a fortune to run this valuable service Funded by mostly charitable folks of the County
so basically, ban all sport and outdoor activity?

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memyselfandanother says...
11:07pm Mon 30 May 11

carrman2 wrote:
These dangerous sportsmen should get a bill for air ambulance when doing this kind of activity, It costs a fortune to run this valuable service Funded by mostly charitable folks of the County
How ignorant! What we have here is an ACCIDENT. The same thing can happen to YOU if you were walking you dog. Worse can happen if YOU were driving your car, or shock horror, Crossing the road. Would you be demanding that a walker, or cyclist or anyone else payed up if they had an ACCIDENT. Agreed, all accidents show sport in a bad light. BUT. What if it was a footballer? Oh, it would be so so different then. More to the point, are you JEALOUS because you have no sense of adventure or sportmanship? Lets hope active sportmen in all walks of life keep safe, and the flyer involved gets well, and the air ambulance continues to do the good job it does without criticism from couch potatos who don't even live in the area. Get real, man.

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jaffa90 says...
11:14pm Mon 30 May 11

Crash landed on a road,why air ambulance ?who called them? I thought we had road ambulances.I pay car/m,cycle/house ins,surely this guy pays ins! Hope he recovers and pays his excess charge,so that his ins can pay for the recovery. Dream on.

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carrman2 says...
11:41pm Mon 30 May 11

I doubt he has any insurance, Not many insurance companies will take a risk with this kind of sports, If he can afford risk his life and lives of, Like others such as the Mountain rescue Service he should cough up,,,, Its not normal run of the mill sports is it,,,

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memyselfandanother says...
11:52pm Mon 30 May 11

Actually registered paragliders have £2,000,000 3rd party insurance. It is then up to themselves if they get personal injury cover. There are specialist companies that cover paragliders, skydivers, snowboarders etc.

The police call out the air ambulance as a matter of procedure. Why the emergency services didn't just send an ambulance in this case is anyone's guess. Left hand not talking to the right hand possibly.

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ladysal says...
12:00am Tue 31 May 11

If someone dives into a swimming pool and damages themselves are they liable? If someone falls while running and twists an ankle are they liable? I don't swim very often and I never run, so for me those sports aren't "run of the mill". What exactly makes one sport more acceptable than others? When did the NHS change its fundamental principle: "free at the point of need" to exclude certain sports?
As for the air ambulance, reading the article it mentions back injuries: transport by air rather than road is less likely to exacerbate such injuries: for those penny pinchers who posted earlier, that means the bill for treatment and rehabilitation will be less.
To the guy who had the accident, hope you recover soon and get back in the air: there is nothing nicer than seeing paragliders over Pendle.

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Rick_Masters says...
6:46am Tue 31 May 11

Hello all. I maintain the global paragliding fatality and injury list at cometclones dot com. Currently, some 800 paraglider pilots are listed as killed since January 2002. More than half appear to have died from sail collapse in turbulence. If compared to typical recreational aviation, paragliding is clearly a gamblers' stunt. This is because paragliding has a unique dead man's curve, below which a reserve parachute deployment can not save the pilot from injury or death. In my opinion, the lack of accountability and ignorance of actual risk shared by paraglider pilots is a symptom of the highest level of denial in the history of aviation. If someone you love wants to paraglide, I strongly suggest they consider free flight with an airframe -- hang glider or sailplane -- instead. Airframes do not collapse in turbulence. Turbulence is a normal characteristic of the atmosphere. This is the reason many airframe pilots would never fly a paraglider.

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tjc says...
7:43am Tue 31 May 11

Lets get some facts on here now. 999 was called, the nature of the accident was described and then the call room decide the best mode of transport. My husband is one of the Pendle paragliders, he is also heavily insured to do this sport. Sending best wishes to the paraglider involved and his family. Those lads have been flying for years and this is one of the first severe accidents that i call recall. So take your nasty mean spirited ignorant comments somewhere else.

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timeforcommonsense says...
1:43pm Tue 31 May 11

What next if you ban all adventure sports? Is this not a kin to health and safety gone mad? No one should be allowed to go caving, rock climbing, hang gliding, fell running, hiking, skiing/snowboarding, go-karting, roller blading, cycling......... I could go on but my point is that all sports and activities carry some risk. Driving your car down the street carries risk. Walking to the shop carries risk. Where would you draw the line? Is no one allowed to have a life and do the things they enjoy?

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oldnotbold says...
1:45pm Tue 31 May 11

Yes, some facts would be good. The person involved in this incident had not completed a formal paragliding training course, and made a very basic error. There are a number of excellent BHPA paragliding training schools available nearby, and even thought there is no legal requirement to be trained, it is foolhardy in the extreme not to get proper training in an activity which clearly has risks.

This is a recurring problem, particularly at Pendle Hill for some reason. There have been other incidents to untrained flyers reported on this site recently.

Even so, I wish the individual involved a full and speedy recovery.

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tjc says...
5:29pm Tue 31 May 11

To the person above, as you are obviously so well informed with last nights events, i do hope you were in support of the air ambulance being used rather than a road ambulance which was the point that was being discussed. I would also like to point out, my husband is BHPA trained.

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oldnotbold says...
8:38pm Tue 31 May 11

My previous post was a response to the misinformed nonsense posted by Rick_Masters. I simply posted some facts to highlight what I consider to be a growing issue - that some people think it is sensible and safe to attempt to fly paragliders, or canopies of any sort, without proper training ... and recent incidents at Pendle Hill clearly show this is not the case.

But yes, of course I fully support the use of the air ambulance in this case - that is simply an operational decision by the rescue service involved, based on the reported location and nature of the incident. If the person reporting it asks for the police / mountain rescue (generally accepted as best practice for this type of incident), the air ambulance will normally be called.

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Flyin Circus says...
10:44pm Tue 31 May 11

jaffa90 wrote:
Crash landed on a road,why air ambulance ?who called them? I thought we had road ambulances.I pay car/m,cycle/house ins,surely this guy pays ins! Hope he recovers and pays his excess charge,so that his ins can pay for the recovery. Dream on.
We do have road ambulances and they were called to the ACCIDENT but because of the nature of the ACCIDENT the ROAD AMBULANCE PARAMEDICS called for the air ambulance. This was the safest, most comfortable mode of transport for the injured SPORTSMAN. Do you really think an air ambulance would have been called if it wasn't needed? For a number of years we have contributed towards the air ambulance services as these heroes are greatly needed for all kinds of accidents. AND this sportsman was living his DREAM paragliding.

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Flyin Circus says...
10:48pm Tue 31 May 11

memyselfandanother wrote:
Actually registered paragliders have £2,000,000 3rd party insurance. It is then up to themselves if they get personal injury cover. There are specialist companies that cover paragliders, skydivers, snowboarders etc.

The police call out the air ambulance as a matter of procedure. Why the emergency services didn't just send an ambulance in this case is anyone's guess. Left hand not talking to the right hand possibly.
Left hand did speak to the right hand. An ambulance did attend the scene of the ACCIDENT and they called for the air ambulance which in this case WAS needed due to the nature of the injuries.

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Flyin Circus says...
10:58pm Tue 31 May 11

We would like to thank all those who send their best wishes to our CLOSE friend and his family.

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The Ring Masters Assisant says...
4:14am Wed 1 Jun 11

Point missed Jaffa

The NWAA main objective is to "Save Life" not pick and choose who they turn out to .

It is recognised that by receiving treatment at the scene and arriving at hospital within the ‘Golden Hour’, the patient’s chances of survival and speed of recovery are dramatically improved.

These guys and gals who carry out these taskings are deicated to saving lifes -and are credit to the service that they provide on a daily basis .

Accidents are Accidents

Hope you have a speed recovery pal.

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tjc says...
9:40am Wed 1 Jun 11

Flyin Circus wrote:
We would like to thank all those who send their best wishes to our CLOSE friend and his family.
Finally, some common sense.

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