Skydiver gets caught in live power lines in Lake Elsinore

A woman practicing skydiving on her own released her parachute at the right time and place Monday, but somehow missed the planned landing site and became tangled in power lines in Lake Elsinore, said Josh Hall, general manager and co-owner of Skydive Elsinore.

“She basically flew over the entire airport,” Hall said Monday afternoon. “Fortunately she is fine; obviously it could have been a lot worse.”

Riverside County firefighters rescued the woman, who was dangling from power lines on Corydon Road — not far from Cereal Street and the Skydive Elsinore store — just before noon Monday, according to a Fire department tweet.

Power lines were live when the woman was stuck, but Southern California Edison officials shut off power in that area while firefighters worked to disentangle the woman, said Maggie De La Rosa, a spokeswoman for Riverside County Fire. Nobody was injured during the rescue.

Hall said the woman, who he declined to identify, was part of the company’s Accelerated Free Fall program, which trains students to become certified to skydive without a tandem instructor. As the woman attempted her first solo training dive on Monday, something went wrong after she let go of the parachute.

Hall said she “couldn’t have been in a better place,” but something went wrong when she had to steer into an open area to land. He said the parachute “opened properly and was in perfect condition.”

“From the sound of it, she was just confused,” Hall said. “She basically flew her parachute into an area where it shouldn’t.”

She’s “very lucky that she basically got away without a scratch,” he added.

Hall said the skydiving student was in good spirits.

He called the incident “very rare” and noted that the company operates more than 100,000 flights a year.

Hall said the incident is being investigated and the company will release additional information when possible.