The Ultimate In Extreme Sports
Bored with life? Want to do a little thrill-seeking just to get the blood pumping? Do you find that paragliding just doesn't do it for you anymore? Do what an Israeli man did then. Add excitement by landing your paraglider in a new and different place.
The unidentified man took off from a peak in the Golan Heights and drifted east towards the Syrian and Jordanian borders before crashing in the minefield, severely injuring his legs in the fall, rescue services said.
Several hours later he was retrieved and evacuated to hospital by helicopter, an army spokesman said.
Paragliding, in which participants jump off tall peaks or cliffs with a parachute strapped to their back, is a popular sport in the Golan, where there are many steep mountains.
Not to put to fine a point on it, but if you're paragliding near minefields you may be a few fries short of a Happy Meal to begin with.
World news | Gaius Saturday, 2 September , 2006
By Tim Parish, Tuesday, 19 September , 2006 @ 9:17 pm
that’s definitely ‘newsworthy’, but plenty of paragliding types around the world will be wincing at the description of paragliding..
“participants jump off tall peaks or cliffs with a parachute strapped to their back” - actually, they carefully assess conditions, then inflate their paraglider (a real aircraft). After checking that it is steady overhead, they then take a few quick steps into the wind before gently leaving the ground.
By Gaius, Tuesday, 19 September , 2006 @ 9:32 pm
This is actually something people should pay more attention to, Tim. You obviously have some expertise in the field. You read something like the report I posted about and note right away that the reporter got a LOT of the story wrong.
So why do you read the paper and assume the next story, on a subject you know only a bit about, is correct?
Kind of scary when you actually step back and look at it, isn’t it?