Skydiving Accident Names Released
A parachutist was killed Sunday morning after jumping tandem with an instructor near the Fremont County Airport, east of Canon City.
The Fremont County Sheriff’s Office has identified the student skydiver who died as 35-year-old Jeremy Worrell from Crested Butte. The instructor, 28-year-old Gregory Whitehurst, of Fountain is in critical condition at Penrose Hospital in Colorado Springs.
After the pair jumped from approximately 8,000 feet, the main and reserve chutes opened at the same time.
“Both chutes had deployed and became tangled up,” said Captain Don Pinover, with the Fremont County Sheriff’s Office.
According to Pinover, the entanglement appears to be what caused the men to rapidly descend to the ground.
Worrell died on impact.
“We believe it was possibly his first jump,” said Pinover.
According to Pinover, Whiehurst had done at least 600 solo jumps and 50 tandem jumps. He was airlifted to the hospital.
KRDO talked to a man who said he was an EMT on scene. Skip Moreau, who owns High Sky Adventures, said he rushed to the site and tried to administer life saving support to the victim.
According to Moreau, the men jumped with a company called Skydive Colorado, owned by Neil Porter.
“They make a lot of skydiving jumps out here,” said Pinover. “I don’t recall the last time we had an accident.”
Skydive Colorado and High Sky Adventures, which operate alongside each other, stopped operations Sunday immediately after the accident.
The last deadly skydiving accident in Fremont county was in 2005, when a man jumped with a company called Skydive the Rockies.
Investigators are looking into how the accident happened Sunday morning.
“We’re going to examine the harnesses and all the rigging on the chute to see if we can determine what happened,” said Pinover. “That may or may not give us some answers.
