GRAND HAVEN, Mich. — On Memorial Day morning in Grand Haven, a skydiver found himself in a tense situation, alarming onlookers below.
Claudette Bethke, a local resident, recounted the moment: “I thought this guy is going to die. It was really scary.” As the skydiver descended rapidly, she feared for his safety when it appeared he was without a parachute.
Char Berghuis, also witnessing the event, shared her fear saying, “He went behind the tops of the trees, and then we thought he was down.” This unsettling moment was compounded as part of the parachute fell into a nearby pond.
Fortunately, the skydiver, Hunter Bauss, a skydiving coach with Skydive Grand Haven, landed safely less than a mile away at the airport. He explained what went wrong: “The main parachute was in diving line twists, and I could not do anything to get out of that.”
In a moment of crisis, Bauss had to cut away his main parachute. Despite appearing alarming to spectators, he described the situation as manageable thanks to training. “Your stomach goes in your throat, and you look up and you watch your main flying away, and then, boom, that reserve opens, and you can breathe," he shared. "And you're like, okay, sweet. Now I just need to land back at the airport.”
After landing, Bauss still needed to retrieve the rest of his equipment. A neighbor of Claudette and Char waded through the pond to collect the gear.
Bauss said, “I got there at the same time, and they're like, we just watched this parachute fall out of the sky. We thought you were on it. And I was like, Nope, I wasn't connected to it. I'm all good.”
“I was relieved that he was alive,” Claudette noted.
According to the U.S. Parachute Association, cutaways like this occur only every 700 to 800 jumps, and the reserve parachute must be packed by an FAA certified parachute rigger.
Hunter did shed light on a tradition among skydivers: after such an incident, it is customary for the jumper to buy the rigger a bottle of their favorite liquor for essentially saving their life.
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