Miami Man Dies In Parachute Accident
A Miami man was killed in North Florida after his parachute did not properly deploy during a practice jump on Friday.
According to the article appearing on the Click Orlando website, seven men, all originally from Cuba, were practicing for an event to honor the family members of fallen police officers.
In a statement to reporters on Friday, Major Brad Smith, spokesperson for the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office, said that one of the seven-man team members, 51-year old Yuset Hernandez of Miami, died when his parachute did not open fully.
Rescue workers were sent to scour a forested area for the missing parachutist. After several hours of searching, at approximately 8:00 p.m.the search teams found Hernandez’s body.
Teammate Nick Perdomo told reporters that the jump was meant to “give back” to the families of law enforcement officers who had been killed in the line of duty.
“Yuset was very big into what he considered his country, and this was a way of giving back — to jump with flags on behalf of all the fallen officers.”
Major Smith said that the fatal accident was during the last practice jump of the day and that the parachute malfunction had been captured on video.
“You can see where he released that chute and was trying to open a secondary chute and wasn’t able to get it open in time,” Smith said.