A Comox Valley woman has released some dramatic footage of a difficult situation she got into while skydiving in hopes of preventing others from running into the same problems.
Krystal Janicki was using a wing-suit for skydiving and had just deployed her main chute when she realized it provided the wrong type of canopy for what she was doing. When the chute started to twist and the lines began to tangle she wasn't able to properly free them because of the suit's constrictions.
"There wasn't enough time to safely try and fight it — so I remember the moment — grabbing my handle and feeling disappointment in myself," said Janicki.
She was able to pull the reserve chute and get safely to the ground but was disappointed that it was the first time she would have to complete a jump with her backup.
Janicki has made more than 100 jumps and admits that the mistake happened because she wasn't overly familiar with the chute she had borrowed and because of over confidence.
"It was just my own mistakes of being complacent, of doing things. You know, once you hit three, four, five hundred jumps, you think, 'oh, it will never happen to me,'" she said.
She says the sport is safe and knows she is likely in for some good-natured ribbing over the incident but says it's worth it if it helps others learn from her mistake.
"My sky diving community will be like, 'Krystal, you know better, why did you do that?' There was nothing that went drastically wrong, the craziest thing was my shame and disappointment," Janicki said.
