An unexpected updraft sent a woman and her instructor crashing to the ground in a freak skydiving accident caught on camera over the weekend.
When the unidentified woman took her first dive at the Keystone Skydive Center in Collegeville, nothing led her to believe she was in danger. She was in tandem with her instructor, Chad Galbraith, and most of the dive ran smoothly.
But at about 30 feet above the ground, the wind compromised the parachute, according to WPVI. An updraft caught the parachute and yanked the pair up another 40 feet.
"All of a sudden, the updraft stopped and the wind came from the side. It folded the parachute underneath and put the parachute into a spin," said Marc Nadeau, a worker at the skydive center.
"They landed hard on their side into the grass and were dragged into the runway. At that time the instructor was able to jettison -- cut away -- the main parachute to keep themselves from being dragged any further."
Galbraith was taken to the hospital with a serious lower back injury and underwent two surgeries this week. The first-time jumper -- whose name the station did not release -- sustained cracked ribs and a collapsed lung.