When This Paraglider Flew Right Into A Huge Storm The Unthinkable Happened

German paraglider Ewa Wisnierska found herself standing with 200 fellow paragliders on the brink of Mount Borah in New South Wales, Australia. They were about to launch off the mountain when they received an unexpected warning.

Storm Clouds

Some ominous storm clouds had been spotted to the north, and as the day progressed, thunderstorm warnings got more and more severe. The paragliders had been warned, and Ewa set her GPS and tracking log. At first glance, the approaching storm didn;t look too dangerous. She prepared to take off, not expecting what would soon unfold.

Takeoff

Safely strapped into her glider, Ewa Wisnierska took a starting run and launched herself into the clouds. On the ground, the rest of the German team followed in a van to track her progress, checking in with the paraglider via radio from time to time.

Calm Before The Storm

The first part of Ewa’s sky-high journey was calm. She followed the Northern facing mountain ridge from Mount Borah for 12 miles before entering the skies over the vast savanna. That;s when things took a turn for the worse.

Thunderstorm Clouds Appeared

As Ewa Wisnierska’s GPS and tracking log ticked on, tracking her progress through the skies, two thunderstorm clouds appeared before her, one larger than the other. She and her teammates had taken off roughly an hour after the other paragliders, were they in danger?

Into The Darkness

Three paragliders were directly en route towards the billowing storm clouds: Ewa, an Austrian friend of hers, and a professional Chinese paraglider – an expert in his field with over a decade of experience. The three of them were fairly confident that they could withstand the menacing clouds. But now they were isolated.

Split-Second Decisions

Many other paragliders behind and around Ewa Wisnierska and her two colleagues were put off by the clouds and made their way back to land.  Ewa’s friends from the German team landed, urging her to do the same. Up in the sky, Ewa was trying to avoid the dark, brewing clouds. She tried to steer herself around the clouds, that’s when the unthinkable happened.

Storm System

In a matter of moments, the weather abruptly took a turn. The smaller cloud was suddenly engulfed and swallowed by the larger one, merging into a tremendous cumulonimbus cloud looming Ewa. Ewa was flying directly into its center. She struggled to veer around the cloud to avoid the pull of the updraft. But as Ewa’s Austrian friend tried to steer away from the storm, he watched her disappear. In a mere moment, she was sucked up into the eye of the storm.

Forced Landing

Ewa Wisnierska’s friend, Austrian glider Gerald Ameseder, pointed his feet straight down and tried to create enough G-force to propel him to spiral away from the cloud. It worked, shooting him out of the sky away from the cloud fortress and towards the earth. Gerald landed at a nearby farm. As rain and hail cascaded down around him, he detached himself from his glider and ran for shelter into the nearest barn. He watched in awe at the most violent lightning storm he’d ever seen. He knew Ewa was in deep trouble.

Whirlwind

Inside the cloud, Ewa Wisnierska was strapped into her paraglider, hurtling upward into the storm. She was utterly powerless to break out of the vicious wind tunnel. Ewa knew she was heading toward the storm’s eye in its terrifying center. She prayed to be thrown out of the cloud as she grasped her glider’s straps, her vision had become dangerously impaired and thunder deafened her.

Heart Of Darkness

Ewa could see nothing at all, it was pitch black, except for intermittent flashes of lightning, dangerously close to electrocuting her as she ascended higher and higher into the storm. It was vital that Ewa kept flying as steadily as possible. She was at the mercy of the terrifying storm. Through the terror and darkness, she managed to make a desperate phone call to the ground crew, saying she couldn’t see. Then, the line cut off.

Uncontrollable Ascent

As Ewa Wisnierska continued to be sucked up by the storm in its cloak of darkness, the temperature dropped below zero. She was gaining altitude at an unbelievable pace, she began to shiver uncontrollably. There was nothing she could do to stop the glider from rising. Huge hail balls the size of oranges painfully pelted her from every angle. Her instruments were soaked. She was gripped with a terrifying thought: Would she survive the storm?

Unconscious

Thousands of feet above land, Ewa Wisnierska blacked out. She floated, unconscious in her harness, unable to receive adequate oxygen. The storm had brought her to the very top of the cumulonimbus cloud, and there she drifted, suspended in the sky. The air at her altitude was 50 degrees below zero. Her face, her gloves, and the wings of her glider, all became encased in a thick layer of ice.

In The Dead Zone

Unconscious and starved of oxygen, her body was freezing over in the plunging subzero temperatures. Each minute that passed increased the chance that Ewa Wisnierska would die there at the limit of the stratosphere. Yet there she remained, strapped into her glider, suspended miles above the Earth.

Free Fall

The wing of Ewa’s paraglider gave way from the weight of the ice. Ewa began to plummet to the earth in a terrifying free-fall. She was still unconscious, not knowing she was falling, hurtling downwards. Ewa’s paraglider shot down towards the heart of the storm, traveling at 90 feet every second, far faster than her ascent. If she did fall to the ground at this speed, she would surely be crushed upon impact.

Midair Miracle

Ewa Wisnierska had been free-falling almost two miles, suddenly, something miraculous happened. Her glider suddenly opened up entirely by itself and its wing straightened back out. As it unfurled, it steadied her. The abrupt jerk of the glider’s movement jolted her awake. As she regained consciousness, she observed her surroundings and noticed that she was still caught in the grip of the deadly thunderstorm. Her mind started to reanimate, and her thoughts slowly began to gain clarity but she could barely move her joints. Would she able to save herself?

Reanimation

Now conscious, Wisnierska was neither falling nor being sucked skyward, but she was still in terrible danger and had to get out of the storm clouds. Lightning and hail continued to erupt and fall all around her. She, and her glider, were still coated in ice. To make matters even worse, the brakes had long since slipped out of her hands, and her gloves were frozen solid. She had no way of controlling the glider.

Blindly Searching

On the ground, near the remote Australian town of Manilla, panic was spreading amongst her team. Her fellow paragliders drove the surrounding area, frantically searching for their friend . They had no idea of her location. Gerald, the Austrian paraglider who had found shelter in the barn where he had landed, managed to contact them, exclaiming that Ewa had been sucked up by the devastating storm cloud. They knew their friend was in mortal danger. Would they find her alive?

Derailed

In August 2006, Ewa Wisnierska was badly injured in a training accident in the Swiss Alps that left her pelvis fractured. It looked as though her participation in the upcoming Paragliding World Championships in Australia would be compromised. But she would not take no for an answer. And now, after fighting so hard to come to Australia and participate again in the World Championship, she was deprived of oxygen, frosted with ice and at the mercy of a massive thunderstorm that could spell for her an imminent death.

Taking Control

Somehow, amid the catastrophe, Ewa Wisnierska managed to slowly reach out her limp hands and grasp the handles and brakes of her glider. Though she was numb with cold and barely able to remain conscious, she maneuvered just enough to steady its course.

Breaking Free

She had to land herself and finally break free of the storm’s grip. Ewa’s head was swimming. She was shivering and short of breath, severely bruised from the constant barrage of hail. Then, she saw an incredible sight.

Space Oddity

She had been in utter darkness, and now, finally, Ewa beheld beneath her the surface of the earth for what seemed like the first time in hours. Just seeing land was an indescribable relief for the paraglider. The Australian plains stretched out beneath her. She was filled with hope; perhaps she would survive.

Instincts Kicked In

Ewa Wisnierska’s instincts kicked in as she steered herself downwards toward the earth. She managed to crash-land her glider into an open field, about 1,500 feet from a farmhouse. At that moment, she internally rejoiced: she was going to live! But she was far from out of danger…

Lying Helpless

Sprawled flat in the grass of the Australian savanna, Wisnierska lay in the fetal position, shivering and shaking uncontrollably. Ewa wanted to get up, to free herself from her harness and move her body to get her blood circulating, but after what felt like hours in the air, she was simply too exhausted to move. It was precisely in that moment that her phone rang.

Finding Ewa

All this time, as they sped across the Australian countryside, her teammates had been trying to make contact. Every time they had called, the signal on the other line was silent. But now, her phone actually was ringing. Finally, she managed to pick it up with her hands although was scarcely able to move. And then, before she could utter a word, the phone cut out.

Desperate For Coordinates

The reception was spotty in the remote field where Ewa Wisnierska lay in desperate need of medical attention. She scraped the ice off of her GPS watch to look at her exact coordinates. She then opened the phone again and began slowly typing her coordinates in a text message to her fellow teammates.

Too Weak

Ewa’s body temperature was dangerously low. She was too weak to move, let alone walk to the nearest farmhouse As she waited for cellular reception to come back, so she could send her teammates the text message, she wandered whether she would die before she was able to send her location. Then her phone rang again.

Breakthrough

This time, the call went through. Ewa begged them to come quickly. They had no idea where she was and urgently needed her exact coordinates. She slowly relayed her GPS data. It was a race against time and the elements. Would they reach their friend before it was too late?

Not Safe Yet

At long last, Ewa Wisnierska’s team reached her. They freed her from the straps of her harnes and propped her up. They knew that Ewa’s body needed to be warmed as soon as possible. Ewa’s teammates wrapped her frigid, wet body in heavy blankets. She was placed in the car and immediately rushed to the nearest hospital. When they finally arrived, something bizarre happened.

Unscathed

Ewa Wisnierska had survived oxygen deprivation, lightning, exposure to extreme cold, and ferocious winds. Despite her ordeal, at the hospital, the doctors told Ewa and her teammates something incredible: she was fine and immediately free to go. The oxygen levels in her blood were normal. She required bandages for the bad case of frostbite on her ears and legs, and the constant assault by hard chunks of hail had left her with bruises, but she would be alright. It was then, Ewa told them something they thought was truly absurd.

How High?

At first, nobody believed Ewa when she told them. She insisted that her GPS tracked her all this time, and according to it, she ascended to a height of 32,634 feet. The number was ludicrous and virtually impossible. Her teammates believed it was not unlikely that her electronic instruments had malfunctioned. But then they double-checked the GPS.

The Most Shocking Revelation

Ewa had not been exaggerating. Her GPS was correct. She had actually been taken up into the air to a maximum height of 32,634 feet! No human being on Earth had ever been at those altitudes unprotected and survived to tell the tale. This is the same altitude at which many commercial jets fly. Ewa Wisnierska had floated unconscious at the height of Mount Everest. She had cheated death itself.

The Return Of The Queen

Ewa Wisnierska’s near-death experience did not stop her from achieving her extreme sporting dreams. She was determined to keep training in advance of the Paragliding World Championship in Australia. Just six short days after her terrifying experience, she decided to take to the air again.

Returned Again

Ewa returned to the very same site that she had originally launched from, atop Mount Borah, New South Wales, Australia. Having been interviewed since then about her jaw-dropping journey, she was surrounded by the media of the world. With news cameras tracking her every move, she took off. And there was one incredible catch.

A Chance To Meditate

Ewa was in the very same glider that she had used on the day of the storm. Not only had she survived the ordeal, but so had her gear. As she flew off into the clear skies, Ewa thought of her fellow pilot, He Zhongpin. The 42-year-old had also been caught in the storm and had sadly died, presumably after being struck by lightning. Remembering him and what could have been, Ewa sailed on — but this would not be her last flight.

Master Of The Winds

Ewa has gone on to compete in a string of other competitions and has won many trophies for her tremendous skill. Today, she is a paragliding teacher, imparting her extensive knowledge with hopes of training the next generation of paragliding superstars.