A video posted to YouTube Sunday shows an incredible rescue — a man having a seizure during a solo skydive is rescued by an instructor who swoops in and pulls his cord.
Within a day of posting, the video had more than 5 million views.
The man having the seizure is Christopher Jones, 22, from Australia. He was in the middle of a skydiving training program when the incident occurred in November, according to the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC).
Jones, who has epilepsy, was medically cleared to skydive. He told ABC he hadn't had a seizure in years and wanted to skydive because he's not allowed to fly an airplane.
"I've always wanted to have the feeling of flight, so I just thought, considering I can't fly a plane due to my condition, I thought I'd give it a go," he said.
Jones was wearing a device that is supposed to automatically deploy a parachute if a skydiver descends below a certain altitude. But his instructor, Robin O'Neill, didn't want to take that chance.
According to the video description, Jones lost consciousness at about 9,000 feet. O'Neill pulls his cord at around 4,000 feet and Jones regained consciousness at about 3,000 feet.
He landed without injury.
Gavin Stern is a national digital producer for the Scripps National Desk.
