On Sunday, December 5th, a 42-year old man fell onto the ground and crushed his backbone while paragliding. The incident occurred at about 11:40 a.m. The man had gone to the field in Itarashiki, Yonabaru-cho around 10 o’clock for paragliding. According to a police report, his flight pattern was at the beginning going on smoothly as usual, and nothing seemed to be wrong. However, some 40 minutes later, the right side of the paraglider suddenly lost buoyancy because of air turbulence. By then he was flying at about 10 metres high. He lost control of his paraglider when he was caught in the turbulence, and was flung onto the ground. He crushed his backbone in the crash. Medical reports say that he will need at least one month to recover from his injury. He is fully conscious, and there is apparently no other life-threatening danger looming over his life for now. Yonabaru Police is still probing into the cause of that accident.
