Spinning violently out of control as he fell toward Earth and an almost-certain death at hundreds of miles per hour, skydiver Michael Holmes had a split second to consider his demise when his parachute and a reserve failed high above New Zealand in December.
“Oh, [expletive]! I’m dead. Bye,” said Holmes, who landed in a bush and lived to tell about it in an exclusive interview on TODAY on Monday.
Holmes’ harrowing escape from death, desperate farewell, wave goodbye and hard landing in a blackberry bush were captured by the helmet-mounted cameras he and fellow skydiving instructor Jonathan King donned Dec. 13 before jumping from a plane at 14,000 feet — more than two miles up.
An expert skydiver and canopy parachutist, Holmes, 24, said he was concerned but did not panic when his main chute failed about 4,000 feet above the ground. He knew the primary chute had deployed, but could not see that it had become entangled with the backpack that housed the chute and a reserve.
