A skydiver taking part in pregame festivities at Virginia Tech's spring football game crashed into the top of the video board overlooking the north end zone stands at Lane Stadium.
Skydiver Pasha Palanker drifted off course and his chute's canopy got caught on the top of the video board, leaving Palanker dangling in the air for about 25 minutes while first responders from Blacksburg Volunteer Fire Department arrived.
Palanker was one of three participants in the pregame festitivies from the Ohio-based Team Fastrak professional skydiving team.
“Mother Nature got the best of him,” Team Fastrax ground safety specialist Sam Deeds said of Palanker in an interview at the stadium. “There was a huge wind gust that came in at that last minute and pushed (the second skydiver and Palanker) both back. The two guys that landed outside the stadium both had (American) flags attached to them. With those flags, the wind caught those pretty good and gave them a bigger push than the guy without the flag. Even the guy that didn’t have the flag got a good push inside the stadium.”
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The words " VIRGINIA TECH” are at the top of the video board. Palanker struck the letters E and C, causing the front portion of those letters to fall to the ground in between the base of the video board and the north end zone stands.
After Palanker's chute was caught he made the decision to drop the flag he was holding.
“He made a decision that was going to be the safest decision for him and the crowd and not put that weight from the flag into the crowd,” Deeds said. “To make that decision at 700, 1,000 feet to try to not put it in the crowd and make it safe for everybody, it takes a lot of training to do that.
“There’s a cutaway system in all of our flag systems … in case there is some type of malfunction. So he did cut that away safely. He made sure no one was below him before he did it.”
Blacksburg Volunteer Fire Department attempted to reach Palanker with a 75-foot ladder but eventually had to graduate to a 100-foot ladder with two firefighters in the bucket. The firefighters were able to get Palanker into the bucket and Palanker was then able to use a cutaway system to detach himself rom the parachute.
Palanker was treated in an ambulance behind the north end zone stands. He did not sustain any broken bones or lacerations.
