ST. LOUIS (KMOX) — A most dramatic scene overnight in Mehlville, as a base jumper’s parachute tangled with a radio-and-T.V. tower in South St. Louis County, leaving him dangling for hours.
Neighbors applauded as the man touched ground after almost two-and-a-half hours stuck 125 feet in the air, his chute and lines jumbled up in a wire from the tower.
“He leaped from the tower, and then when he deployed his chute when he was coming down, obviously he couldn’t see the guide wire, and went into it,” says Mehlville Fire Chief Brian Hendricks. “He was pretty stuck.”
Stuck, until he was given a harness and slashed his own parachute lines.
The man was lowered to the ground and appeared to be uninjured, though was taken away in an ambulance.
We’ll find out today what charges – if any – the parachutist faces.
Curt Isakson is a 35 year veteran of the fire service. Curt is currently a Battalion Chief for Escambia County Fire Rescue. Previously worked 9 years with the Pensacola Fire Department where he was assigned as the Company Officer on Rescue 31. Curt’s fire service experiences started at a young age as a Junior firefighter with the Midway Fire Protection District and rose through the ranks to Captain. He has worked in volunteer, career, and combination departments.
Curt has held all ranks up to Battalion Chief and been assigned to operations, training, inspections, and was Chief of Special Operations for 7 years. Curt owns and operates County Fire Tactics that covers a very diverse range of fire service topics, as well as Firefighter Rescues, a site that documents rescues made by firefighters around the country.
He has annual contracts with numerous departments to provide standardized monthly training for these departments that respond daily together under an automatic aid agreement. Curt teaches nationally to include; FDIC, Firehouse Expo, Firehouse World, Orlando Fire Conference, Atlanta Fire Conference, Bowling Green State University, and owns/operates the annual HROC, COBC, WOTF, CFT ODP on Pensacola Beach. He is a Florida Certified Fire Officer, Instructor, Inspector, Arson, and FLUSAR.
Reblogged this on The NW Fire Blog.