'Prepare for a hard landing': Whitehorse woman injured in skydiving mishap

A Whitehorse woman is recovering in Vancouver after a bucket-list skydiving adventure went wrong.

Jessica Clark is now in a rehabilitation facility, having suffered a broken foot, broken ankle and a fractured vertebrae, according to her sister, Julie Clark.

"She's still in an assessment phase. So they're not really too sure what long-term impacts she's going to have, and what type of disability she's going to be living with," said Julie, who agreed to speak to CBC on her sister's behalf.

Julie says her sister is "not super-adventurous," but had long had skydiving on her bucket list. Last month, Jessicafinally decided to take the leap as a way of celebrating her 38th birthday, and beating the COVID-19 pandemic blues.

"Afriend of hers was like, 'you know what? Like, it's been a hard year for everybody. Let's just get this off of the bucket list," Julie said.

The two friends made the arrangements and travelled down to northern B.C. last month. But when Jessica and her skydiving guide took their leap, something went wrong.

"Jessica jumped out of thehelicopter and was told that something's not right with the parachute,so just prepare for a hard landing," Julie said.

"And that's what it was a very hard landing."

'It wasn't working the way that it was supposed to work'

Julie's not exactly sure what the problem was with the parachute. She says it opened, but something was wrong.

"It just, it wasn't working the way that it was supposed to work,for lack of any real information. And it just created a situation where they had a very hard landing," she said.

Julie says her sister's husband was on the ground filming the whole thing. Jessica's friend saw it happen from the air, parachuting down behind her.

Both Jessica and her diving guide were injured when they landed. Julie could not say how badly the guide was hurt, but said both the guide and her sister "are going to be OK."

It's not clear how long Jessica will remain at the rehabilitation facility in Vancouver. Julie just returned to Whitehorse from a visit there, and said she was amazed at how her sister is doing.

"The five days we were there, the progress was it was unbelievable," Julie said.

A GoFundMe page set up to raise money for Jessica says she'll need long-term physiotherapy and mobility assistance equipment. It also says that she had to close her business in Whitehorse, which had just recently reopened as COVID-19 restrictions were eased. The online campaign has raised more than $13,000 so far, surpassing the original goal of $10,000.

Julie says she's very close to her sister, and it's been hard to be away from her.

"We miss having her at the house, and the kids I mean, you can't really explain what... I mean, my daughter doesn't understand why she jumped out of a helicopter," Julie said.

"It was a tough, you know, couple of weeks when you come to the realization that life is going to be very different and you don't know what that difference is going to look like.But yeah, she's here and we're lucky."