Famed mountaineer Nirmal ‘Nims’ Purja was involved in a tragic parachuting accident that claimed the life of his instructor, Dean Waldo, on Oct. 14. Now, Purja outlines some of what happened.
Editor’s note: This article was originally published on Explorersweb.
A tragic parachuting accident on Friday endangered Nims Purja’s life and killed his instructor. “For reasons that are being investigated, the parachutes of the Nepalese climber and the instructor became entangled in the middle of the jump,” Diario de Sevilla wrote at the time.
Breaking: One man died while Nirmal Purja survived following a parachuting accident today. They were practicing jumps in the La Juliana aerodrome in Sevilla, Spain, when the accident occurred.https://t.co/DvbQGRWh3I
— ExplorersWeb (@ExplorersWeb) October 14, 2022
Explorersweb recently received an email from Purja’s brand manager with a statement from the climber. In it, he described last week’s fatal accident, which killed the instructor, Dean Waldo.
“I am devastated at the loss of Dean,” Purja wrote. “We had been training together in Spain over the last week.”
Purja Statement on Fatal Parachute Accident
According to Purja, this is what happened:
During a standard skydive, Dean and I were conducting canopy handling and canopy stacking drills. We left the aircraft at 15,000 ft and completing a formation routine while in freefall.
We both finished the routine and were under good canopies by 3,500 ft. With Dean being the high man and above, he made his way down to me. I stayed on heading in full fight towards the Drop Zone as planned. Dean approached and was positioned at 45 degrees directly behind and above. This required deep brakes to stay in position and it is thought due to this, Dean’s canopy stalled and collapsed sending him through my canopy and entangling him within my lines.
This action sent us both into a severe spin and increased our fall rate dramatically. At this point I had no option but to cut away and pull my reserve, releasing me from the entanglement. My observation of Dean was he was under an inflated canopy but descending at a faster rate. I didn’t witness him flaring on landing and identified he was seriously injured.
I conducted lifesaving treatment but unfortunately due to the severity of his injuries, I was unable to resuscitate him.
The news arrived almost a month after Purja sustained injuries in a paragliding accident at Manaslu base camp.
