A paraglider who crashed into power lines over Melbourne Beach earlier this month is expected to survive the harrowing ordeal.
The accident happened Nov. 17 near Spessard Holland Golf Course on Oak Street. It caused a temporary power outage in the area.
Melbourne Beach Mayor Jim Simmons said the area lost power during the incident, but not for long. “We did have a short outage, but more of a blip than a real outage,” Simmons said.
The unidentified man was transported to the hospital by helicopter. Both the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office and Brevard County Fire Rescue were on scene.
This accident involved a motorized paraglider, seen so often cruising up and down the shoreline.
Sunny Winer-Coughlin of Stuart was driving down A1A when she saw the paraglider zoom past overhead, then become entangled in the power lines.
“He hit the wire, it ignited, burst into flames, and he fell to the ground,” Winer-CoughIin said. “I stopped, and so did several other people, but we had nothing to douse the fire.”
Together, the good Samaritans decided to flag down passing cars and ask drivers for any water they might have.
“People were handing us water bottles to put out the flames, one person gave us a cooler with ice in it and then someone else came along with a blanket,” Winer-Coughlin said. “When emergency services got there, he was still stuck in the contraption and audibly moaning.”
Winer-Coughlin, who is a licensed clinical social worker, was in town to visit a friend who had recently suffered a stroke. She was on her way to Floridana Beach, where she was staying, when the incident occurred. “I was so upset by the whole thing, I had to take a day off work,” she said. “But I want the family to know that many people cared enough to stop and help.”
According to the United States Powered Paragliding Association (USPPA), paragliding is a self-regulated sport, so there is no requirement to be a certified pilot, but 5-8 full days of training from a certified trainer are recommended before getting started.
On their website, they claim it is “probably the safest form of private aviation ever devised” and attribute this to the fact that any potential problem typically will prevent the pilot from taking off in the first place.
The USPPA lists 443 incident reports (which include an accident, potential accident, near accident or unsafe condition) involving a motorized paraglider from 1995 and 2018.
“Last update I had was that the victim was in stable condition and expected to survive,” said BCSO spokesman Tod Goodyear.