[Rick Masters]

http://serrasconline.com.br/geral/18171 ... em-sc.html

[wingspan33]

A 28 year-old died after hang-gliding fall in Canelinha, in Florianópolis, on Sunday afternoon (24). According to the Fire Department, the accident occurred during a free flight championship which Renato Ribeiro, known as Renato, was participating.

The amateur cameraman Moacir Costa recorded on video the flight until the time of the fall (see the video on the side) and first aid. As shown in the pictures, he took off and got to practice some maneuvers, assisted by the public. About 40 seconds later, the machine crashed into the vegetation.

According to colleagues, Renato was an experienced pilot and acted also as instructor of the sport. In flight school page that worked, he says that his first flight was three, in Lagoa da Conceição, in Florianópolis, in a double with his father Rogério Ribeiro Campos, pilot since 1984 and who died in 2007. Renato was married and had a daughter four years.

The place where the accident happened is in the Morro da Pipa, an area of difficult access, according to the fire department to get to the point where he was lying, rescuers had to use a quadriciclo.O boy came to be seen at the scene of the accident but succumbed to his injuries and died. According to the Fire, he had cardiac arrest and suffered head trauma, and spinal injuries.

The Archangel Helicopter Fire Department was called on to help to care. As the Tijucas Fire, there is a suspicion that the wind has pushed the pilot against the hill.

[Bill Cummings]

“A 28 year-old died after hang-gliding fall in Canelinha, in Florianópolis, on Sunday afternoon (24).
According to the Fire Department, the accident occurred
during a free flight championship which Renato Ribeiro, known as Renato, was participating.”

For those new web surfers that see the term “free flight championship,” in which Renato died you could get the wrong idea.
In this instance the euphemistic term “free flight championship,” means radical aerobatic maneuvers that are outside all hang gliding manufacturer recommendations.

Had Renato been flying safely within the hang gliding manufacturer recommendations Renato more than likely would still be with us today.

[brianscharp]

Low and slow, but not in the good old fashioned meaning of the phrase.
http://www.hanggliding.org/viewtopic.ph ... sc&start=0

[wingspan33]

He was a young guy but the mention near the end of the article indicating the findings of cardiac failure, . . .

Well, that may have struck him as he launched. Hard to keep your glider stable if you're having a MASSIVE Coronary!

[edit] Seems that link to the other forum shows this accident took place back in 2013. And if "free flight championship" actually means Aerobatic Championship, then the heart issue may be less likely.

[Rick Masters]

Why do pilots sometimes lose consciousness and die after a crash?

Nearly 90% of patients with aortic injuries die before they even get to the ER. Among those who have this injury and arrive alive at the hospital, 20-30% will die in the first six hours, 40-50% in the first 24 hours and 60-80% in the first week.

Traumatic Aortic Disruption: What Is It?

Traumatic aortic disruption is caused by the shearing forces of high-speed front and side impact automobile accidents and by falls from great heights that tear the aorta away from the heart. The ER staff normally sees cases where the aorta is only partially disrupted because a complete disruption will kill a victim within moments of the accident, usually at the scene.

Unlike broken bones or bleeding wounds, partial aortic injury can be difficult to detect for a harried ER doctor. Further complicating matters is that many car accident victims have all sorts of other life-threatening injuries that demand immediate attention. A small minority of patients with traumatic aortic disruption may have chest or upper back pain that increase as blood pressure increases; this is a warning sign that the aorta is about to tear away completely from the heart. Even fewer complain of difficulty swallowing, difficulty speaking, hoarseness, or shortness of breath — all possible signs of a torn aorta. Frighteningly, most have no symptoms at all.

Traumatic aortic disruption often first shows up on a chest x-ray, although a chest x-ray does not always settle the matter. A normal chest x-ray does not completely rule out aortic injury and false-positive results are not uncommon. Part of the problem is that it can be difficult to move seriously injured patients into the best position to be x-rayed clearly. For this reason, doctors sometimes look for traumatic aortic disruption using other diagnostic techniques, such as transesophageal echocardiography (TEE), which can be done at the patient's bedside, or contrast-enhanced CT scan (computed tomography), also known as a CAT scan.

What's the Treatment?
Once traumatic aortic disruption is confirmed, the only treatment is surgery. The question is whether or not to operate immediately. The answer depends on what other injuries the patient has suffered and whether the aortic rupture is likely to get worse suddenly. Since the forces that cause aortic injury are tremendous, they often cause other injuries that are more immediately life threatening. In these cases, the ER doctor may decide to treat these injuries before doing heart surgery.

Whatever the decision, the doctor must continue to watch carefully for elevated blood pressure. Elevated blood pressure can sometimes cause a ruptured aorta to tear away completely, which would be fatal. Finally, any procedure that can make a patient gag and vomit, such as the use of a nasogastric tube to remove blood from the stomach, should be avoided as the straining from gagging and vomiting could further injure the torn aorta. Emphasis has to be placed on keeping the patient as comfortable and calm as possible. As part of this effort, the patient needs to be given enough pain-relief medicine to help keep their blood pressure down.

Conclusion
Though often hard to detect and, sometimes, virtually invisible, traumatic aortic disruption is one of the main causes of death after a car accident or similar severe injury. Survival is often a matter of getting to the ER right away — and finding an observant and alert medical staff.

http://www.thedoctorwillseeyounow.com/c ... ?getPage=1