Geoff writes: today is the last full day for Mick and Wayne, and it had a deteriorating forecast. Skiing was written off as an option – the first two days were enough for Wayne. Flying, though, seemed possible, before the wind came in later. In the end, after some indecision, we decided on Sant Pere de Rodes, mostly because if it was not flyable, or after flying if it was ok, we could then do other stuff, like go to the beach. Also, Mathias, who lives near there, thought it would be a good day.

We were up early, and so had time for a quick visit to the famous tree house. I guarded the car and gliders, whilst the others went inside. This is the only place where there is a real risk of theft from cars – mostly because once you are in the maze, you can be meters from the car, but still not able to get out to stop any thieves.

Then on to meet Marc, to go up Sant Pere de Rodes. At this point, I decided we were in a hurry to get there before the wind picked up. On the drive up, we saw a glider flying, so knew it was still ok. After giving a bottle of wine to the car park attendant, who always lets pilots park free, we did the route march up to launch. As we were walking up, it still seemed fine, though maybe top end.

On getting to launch, we saw the sight pilots always hate to see – a glider in the bushes just below launch. We rushed down, and found Jesus, a friend of ours, conscious, but obviously badly hurt. No-one else was there – he had been flying with two others, but they had bottom landed, and as far as we knew at that point they did not know Jesus had crashed. Marc immediately called for a helicopter, and we did what we could to make Jesus comfortable. At one point  he stopped breathing for a while, but we managed to get him started again; he also went briefly into shock, and was unconscious for a few seconds, but again came around. We kept him warm, and kept talking to him.

Very soon (in fact, a very fast response) the medics arrived by helicopter (by the end, there were three helicopters from different branches, bringing more medics, firemen and police ). They stabilised him, and finally he was winched off to hospital.

As it turned out, one of the other PG pilots had seen the accident, but I think maybe hadn’t realised quite how serious it was. He had bottom landed – top landing is extremely difficult here – and driven back up, but then it is also a 15 minute walk to launch from the parking. Jesus was extremely fortunate we arrived when we did, and so were able to call the emergency services relatively soon after his accident.

He has a broken pelvis and internal bleeding, but is stable, so hopefully, this has had a happy ending. Wayne even found his vario/GPS, which he was very worried had been lost.

As always, the helicopter pilots were amazing, hovering and dropping off medics over very steep and difficult terrain.

Needless to say, we didn’t fly afterwards – and also the wind had picked up considerably by that point (but even if it hadn’t, I doubt any of us would have flown). Instead we had a picnic looking at the spectacular scenery, then went for a walk along the beach.

Not the best day ever, except for the fact that our friend is alive, and hopefully will fully recover.

See photos of today.

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