A 21-year-old Fremont woman died after a skydiving accident
Friday near Tres Pinos, and investigators believe she made an error
that led to the accident. Full article
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A 21-year-old Fremont woman died after a skydiving accident Friday near Tres Pinos, and investigators believe she made an error that led to it.
Emergency responders received the report at about 4 p.m. of the accident involving Jayme Milnes, a skydiver with more than 150 jumps, according to authorities.
She had been jumping from the Skydive Hollister business located at the Hollister Municipal Airport, said Detective Sgt. Tony Lamonica with the San Benito County Sheriff’s Office.
She fell to the ground in an area outside Tres Pinos where Skydive Hollister routinely drops jumpers. Authorities believe her free fall started between 30 and 40 feet from the ground, Lamonica said.
Investigators reviewed video from a camera attached to Milnes during the jump and believe the accident “probably” was due to an error by Milnes, Lamonica said.
“We’re thinking it was probably an error” as opposed to a parachute failure, the sergeant said.
The woman sustained a bilateral femur fracture and severe facial trauma, said Jonathan Pangburn, a spokesman for Calfire, which responded to the accident as well. At the scene, responders had to conduct CPR on Milnes – which prevented use of a Calstar helicopter ready to transport the victim.
Instead, the life-flight nurse accompanied responders and the victim to Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead shortly after the accident, Lamonica said.
The accident Friday comes more than two years after a 40-year-old Tulare woman fell to her death in the same area. That woman’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in January against the business at the same Hollister location – then called Adventure Center Skydiving – alleging that the company gave her a defective parachute.
