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Video: Tesas teenager Mackenzie Wethington went skydiving as a 16th-birthday gift and plunged hundreds of feet to the ground after her parachute failed to open. Though she suffered multiple injuries, she survived.
A Texas teen is recovering after her birthday gift of a sky-diving trip went awry when she plummeted 3,500 feet and slammed into the ground.
Mackenzie Wethington, 16, is in an Oklahoma hospital on Tuesday after suffering a lacerated liver and kidney, broken teeth, and fractures in multiple vertebrae, ribs and her pelvis in the mishap on Monday.
Despite her many injuries, her parents are simply grateful that she survived the fall. “She’s a miracle,’’ her father, Joe Wethington, told TODAY Tuesday. “She’s a miracle child.”
TODAY
Mackenzie Wethington, 16, was excited for her first sky dive, which was a birthday present from her family.
Joe took Mackenzie to Pegasus Air Sports Center in Chickasha, Okla., for her first sky dive as a birthday present. They were told she would be doing a static line jump on her own. Used to open parachutes automatically for novice jumpers, a static line is a fixed cord that is attached to both the plane and the sky diver.
“She was still so excited that she still wanted to go,’’ her father said.
TODAY
Mackenzie's father, Joe Wethington, accompanied her on the jump at Pegasus Air Sports Center in Chickasha, Okla.
Mackenzie boarded a 1958 Cessna for the jump, which soon went awry.
“Her chute opens [and] she starts spinning,’’ her father recounted.
TODAY
Joe Wethington called his daughter a "miracle child" after she survived the fall.
Wethington watched as Mackenzie plummeted two-thirds of a mile before crashing into the ground. An ambulance rushed her to the intensive care unit at Oklahoma University Medical Center. She is now awake and breathing on her own.
TODAY
The owner of Pegasus Air Sports Center, Bob Swainson, believes Mackenzie may have been at fault in causing the fall.
Bob Swainson, the owner of Pegasus Air Sports Center, believes Mackenzie may be responsible for the accident.
“Once all the training is over, and we’re happy with everything then, then we can go and make the
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