I am so surprised by 2 things here... 1. Paragliders being an UL, that's as strange as paramotors forced to take off and land in an airfield only. 2. Landing on your ass instead of legs by default. Seems like a really bad idea for any time there might be strong wind or gradient on the landing. In France we always try to and on our feet because seating down you lose any control of the wing which can drag you and the passenger on the ground. As a tandem pilot I would expect people to be able to land gracefully on their feet and put the wing down on the side or in otherwise controlled manner not let it slam forward.

Thx a lot for sharing . I'm a paragliding beginner from France, and I will always remember your story... Fly safe. And thank you, realy.

That is an incredible story to learn from. The important of having the right equipment and a team flying to assist in a situation. I look around in our area there are a lot of wires. Glad you are ok and thanks for sharing. I am sure this was not easy. These electrical burns are very bad. I am sure they will affect you for a long time. The famous BLUE ARCH is a scary thing. I hope you did not lose use of limbs or parts. I wish you the best recovery.

Wow, i am so sorry this has happened to you, this is absolutely awful. Im guessing you didnt get the full 230kv, and just were capacitively coupled, so you may have gotten like a 10kv shock. I hope you have recovered over thr years, both mentally and physically. I also am so sorry you had to watch your friend die like that. That is absolutely horrible.

LEARN TO STEER YOUR PARAGLIDER LONG BEFORE FLYING ANYWHERE NEAR POWER LINES.

Kudos to you Sir. For sharing this experience in order that we can all learn.

A very honest appraisal, thank you.

Wow, lucky escape, glad you survived. Thanks for sharing...

Thank you Lane. Great amount of efforts went into making the video and story. I admire your honesty and direction you have taken the story. As I say to my students. Always have 10% left in the tank when you land out. Regards Rob

hey Lane, just saw your video now for the first time, man, what an experience ... also saw your ted talk and something seems crazy to me, you go this powerline accident three years ago and right after the other PG accident where you fell from high up and subsequently lost your lower leg ? wow man :((

Where is this place?

God saved you , give you another chance , you should thank god ❤️❤️ hopefully you alive 🙏

Very useful ! Thank you.

I've heard a trick when it comes to flying over powerlines. Fly over the power poles, not wires. You can miss the wire, but you can't not see the pole. So if you're not high enough above the pole, don't fly over the lines at all.

You were being shocked not electrocuted silly you didn't die

I have never understood why those lines aren’t coated my dads been an electrician my whole life

Amazing story! There's so much I want to say & ask you but at the same time completely speechless... Thanks for sharing... 🪂🪂🪂🪂🪂🪂🪂🪂🆘🪂🪂🪂🪂🪂🪂🪂🪂

Brilliant story: What is the lesson you have learned and what is your recovery recommendation to avoid such a situation in the future. I can only suggest a sailors view of such a situation. Like you a good sailor would have a course plan. All navigational issues have to be thought through and your plan would be submitted to an authority so that if you failed to log in someone would come looking for you. Do you carry nav aids to show the ground hazards. If you see a hazard what is the best way to minimise risk. Taking into account your altitude I would have thought a turn away was the safest option. PS I know nothing about paragliding but I am so glad that you survived the ordeal. Were you sued by the power company and do you have to have insurance cover. Stay safe and stay aloft😀😀.

As veteran firefighter/paramedic I have to say “what makes you so stupid? Gotcha, a little firehouse ribbing and humor. All kidding aside, I’m glad you made it out and now you can use your experience to hopefully steer others from a similar harrowing situations. It takes a real man to swallow his pride and admit the things he did wrong. Peace

Great that you passed this experience to others.

Those transmission lines are anywhere from 300 to 500,000 volts. Had you grounded out you would have been a puff of smoke literally. Count your blessings dude, glad to see you made it out ok.

You were very, very, very fortunate. Especially in light of you were avoiding by just the skin of your teeth, a phase-to-ground fault, which would have . . . literally . . . incinerated . . . you. From the OWG (Overhead Ground Wire or Shield Wire) which is grounded at each tower for the lightning protective counterpoise, your contact was also to the live phase conductor. Although the line was a double circuit 230-kV, each phase is 132-kV phase-to-ground. I have known distribution linemen who lost entire arms! to contact with 7.2-kV. Your ropes and rigging must have been nylon or some insulating plastic which were just enough to cause minor arcing (although "minor" is probably not the word you'd use) but relatively insulated enough to avoid full follow-through current. Just enough conductivity to allow arcs to form, but not for full unrestricted conductivity. Electrical distribution and transmission arcs under short circuit conditions are asymmetrically high, at their center, hotter than the surface of the sun. Heavy currents are also tetanizing. That is, making your hands and muscles rigid and inflexible. You . . . were EXCEEDINGLY . . . fortunate. Count your blessings. Appreciated your video of this incident. Let's hope others don't fall into the same situation you've been forced into. Others have not survived.

Being shocked is how you survived....electrocuted means you died. People don't survive electrocution. Just an fyi.

no video of the impact?

Your time wasn't up. Absolute miracle you survived. Great video - kept the camera running to the very end. Hypoxia creeps up on you without you even knowing it.

Your titanium rods are probably what saved you. They probably took the electricity away from your heart.

No, MY name's Lane. Amazing story, thanks for sharing

Your experience will definitely help someone else sooner or later.

Hi Lane! Thank you so much for having the courage to share your experience, not just from a technical point of view, but from the deep observer's point of view. I learned a lot, and you touched my heart because you brought all the other aspects of flying. It shows the depth of your spiritual experience, thank you for it. Ping me if you come to fly in my area in Provence, France. I'll gladly take you to amazing spots, and hopefully we'll avoid powerlines :) Blessings to you! Jean-François

Sorry to get personal, but what happened to cause your amputation? Was it your hang gliding accident? Or cancer? I watched two,of your videos but did not catch the reason. Sorry if it was there and I just missed it. Thanks.

Who are the 37 dislikers????? I'm french, went through something big and like you, escaping from close death (professional situation). Thank you very much for your feedback, sharing this kind of experience will surely save lives (surely mine as a new paraglider). The swiss cheese model is also known as the Reason's plates model (Reason Charkman). I hope you get better and enjoy being in the air again. Fly safe!!

you got really lucky, glad your ok, if all of the power had decided to go from you to the lightning wire then as soon as it shocked you, you would not have been here, but i’m not bashing you i have been in dumb situations that are very stressful like this

The lightning line is why you never fly low over high voltage power lines

Tough and smart believe it or not to at least be smart enough to save your own life .Good luck buddy I know your back flying

Close call.

Problems of the rich white guy you put yourself in that situation

@On Final Paragliding I'm curious as to what happened after you got down. Any fines or did you have to pay to get the tower fixed. I hit a telephone pole back in 93 going about 60 mph and horse shoed my car around the pole. Split it in half, thank God it was a older pole and looked dry rotted at the bottom. I was going into the marines back then and a few friends threw me a party about a week before shipping out, two of em were in the car with me and by the grace of God no one was killed . But I was hurt bad, broken jaw broken leg, concussion, lacerations from head down to my arms and below my knees, and years later had spinal fusion, it's a miracle I wasn't both killed nor paralyzed, woke up under the steering wheel and remember vividly only two things before waking up in the recovery room of the hospital. I remember saying out loud , my mom's going to be pissed. And then repeatedly saying over and over I'm not going to die I'm not going to die I'm not going to die... That changed my life forever. Nobody died you know both friends were wearing seat belts I was not and I don't know if they weren't I don't think either one of them would have lived but I did get three years of probation and was unable to go into the military because of injuries.... But i definitely had to pay for that pole. And if I recall I had to pay for the shut down of service.

It sounds like you’re trying to add some normal into your life. Our brains unfortunately need time to accept the fact things are different. I’ve been in a wheelchair for 50 years now, and I can honestly say I still think it sucks, but it isn’t important thing in my life. Join an amputee group. They can teach you techniques, and shortcuts that would take you years to learn on your own.

You work so hard to make things positive and elevate others sharing what you've learned, you deserve all the best.

You better do something very amazing with your life. Because it is amazing that you are alive. There are many high voltage lines that are not insulated.

God obviously has things in store for you to do. I'm very thankful you survived & did this video. God bless you ! ❤🙏❤🙏❤🙏

All I ca. Say is someone or something was watching out for you. Thank you for sharing I am so thankful your here to share the experience and teach people about how no matter how professional you are or how many years or experience you have things can still go wrong! But you never gave up the fight!

I’m so happy that you survived 🙏🏿. You may have saved some lives with your extraordinary testimony. Stay positive man. 🙏🏿🥃

Stoked then fasting.. im out

Truly appreciate you sharing this story. You definitely made the right choice by Choosing to put it out there and potentially save some lives.

OMFG!! I could hear the sadness in your voice and Im sorry you went through this..I recently watched a young fella on yt,climb one of those pylons for kicks- how he never got zapped is beyond me..

Wow!! What an incredible life story. Kudos to you for telling your story. I work in the Electrical Utility Industry and know how lucky & blessed you are to be here to share your story.

I would always default to away from any power lines if in doubt and 230kv power lines are not even the most powerful in the us they go up to 765kv in some areas

The PLB's are better for rescue but they don't allow two-way communication.

Thank you for sharing this. But I think it is extremely important to point out, that you only touched one wire and therefore survived. If you would have made a connection between 2 phases (in this case this equals to 2 wires, or 1 wire and the ground, or 1 wire and the overhead earth wire) you would have been burned to death in an instance. Even in a faraday cage suit a full short circuit would have killed you, due to the extremely high temperatures, even in a cage suit... So there are 2 possible explanations: you only touched one wire and formed a parallel circuit like a bird on a wire - unlike a bird, because of your size and the larger parallel circuit you will still get electrocuted and burned, but due to the very high resistance with a much much much lower current. Another possibility is, that your glider made a full connection, but nylon lines act almost like an insulator and hardly conduct any electricity. So what you felt was a tiny tiny tiny tiny fraction of that voltage/current from that powerline. What you felt was less powerful than a poweroutlet at home, because otherwise you would have been killed. A full connection with anything higher than an electric cattle fence will cause arrhythmia, and at higher voltages will burn you to death. With 230KV there would have been only dust left. But thank you very much for sharing this, but I think it is important to point out, that an actual short circuit can not be survived.