A woman who remarkably survived a skydiving disaster has detailed the one mistake she made after her parachute failed to open.

It was back in November 2021 when Jordan Hatmaker dreamt of getting her skydiving licence.

By then, she’d done a handful of tandem jumps and 15 solo jumps, and skydiving had become a real hobby.

“I was in love,” Jordan wrote in her book The Girl Who Fell from The Sky. “From the adrenaline rush of jumping out of a plane at 13,500 feet above the ground, to the great sense of accomplishment after landing.”

Skydiving had become a real hobby for Jordan Hatmaker. (Supplied)

She added: “Between 2015 and 2020 I did five tandem jumps, each time falling more and more in love with the sport. In 2020, I had a couple of friends decide to get their skydiving licenses, so I thought it’d be the perfect time to get mine as well.”

For those unfamiliar with the world of skydiving, getting your skydiving license allows you to make solo skydives at any drop zone without supervision.

And on 14 November, 2021, Jordan had gone up for her second and last jump of the day to gain more experience for the license.

In her book, she described the sunny Sunday afternoon as ‘ideal’ for skydiving, but tragedy would strike next.

Speaking to UNILAD, Jordan realized she was in difficulty ‘as soon as I pulled my parachute’.

This led to the 37-year-old, from Virgina Beach, VA, going into ‘survival/strategy mode’.

In 2021, Jordan got into difficulty with her parachute during a skydive. (Supplied)

So, what exactly happened?

Jordan explained: “The pilot chute, a smaller parachute that pulls out your main canopy (parachute), was completely wrapped around my leg. My leg was suspended in the air as I continued to free fall with nothing to slow me down.”

Just 20 seconds passed from the moment Jordan released the chord to when she crashed into the ground at an estimated speed of around 80mph, but she admitted it ‘felt way longer’

“I was just thinking that the ground was coming up very quickly and it was going to be a painful landing,” she tells UNILAD.

“I did not think I was going to die. I just thought it was going to hurt.”

Despite the fall, Jordan remained fully conscious while she was airlifted to hospital.

“They gave me ketamine in order to get me into the helicopter. I remember flying through a kaleidoscope of changing shapes and colors,” she said.

The skydiver crashed to the ground at around 80 mph. (Supplied)

“When I came to, there were two flight paramedics smiling above me and I asked if I was ‘alive, dead, or in a third dimension’.”

Recalling the tragic incident now, Jordan admits there’s one mistake she made.

“Looking back, I should’ve immediately deployed my reserve parachute upon realizing something was wrong,” she explains.

Because of the fall, Jordan broke five vertebrae in her spine and sustained a spinal cord injury.

On top of that, Jordan tells us how she sustained a relatively rare, high-impact fracture called a pilon fracture.

She went on: “The spinal cord injury has caused internal organ dysfunction and numbness in parts of my body.”

Recently, Jordan celebrated the two-year anniversary of her being able to walk unaided with a hike.

She penned on Instagram: “Celebrating my 2 year anniversary of being able to walk on my own with some hiking & bouldering. Forever grateful for my mobility.”

Jordan’s injuries could have been a lot worse. (Supplied)

So, having been confronted with death, what advice does Jordan have for others about life?

“DO EVERYTHING! Don’t put off your bucket list items,” she said.

Jordan has been following her own advice since her incident, and in September did a tandem skydive. She’s said she would ‘love’ to return to the skies soon.

“You never know when life is going to change or end,” Jordan added. “When I was in the hospital a persistent thought was if I can never walk again. I am so happy I have lived life to the fullest thus far.”

UNILAD’s Survivors series sheds light on different survival experiences and the lessons learned from facing death. New interviews will be released daily beginning May 20.

A doctor has issued a terrifying warning to those who share certain items with people after a woman in Australia nearly died.

Jo Gilchrist, from Queensland, Australia, had her life turned upside down back in 2015 after using a simple personal item she’d lent from a friend.

But Jo’s friend was suffering a bacterial infection called Staphylococcus, though these are normally treated with antibiotics.

However, the bacteria that entered Jo’s bloodstream via a small cut on her face was a strain known as Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), which is resistant to medicines such as penicillin.

Jo was left wheelchair-bound (Nine)

The mom was ultimately left wheelchair-bound after borrowing her pal’s makeup brush, having decided to use the beauty applicator to cover up a pimple.

Speaking to 9Entertainment about her terrible ordeal, she said: “It travelled around my body, into my spinal column and slowly strangled my spinal cord. I did at one stage think I was going to die, and I was dying slowly.”

She added: “Lying in surgery staring at the lights, hyperventilating, telling them, ‘I’ve got a two-year-old who needs me, I’m all he’s got,’ that was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through.”

Jo spent five months in hospital after falling ill, though an intensive rehab programme did mean she was able to walk again.

“I found this incredible place called Making Strides. Sometimes they’re teaching people how to walk again or take their first steps, or they’re teaching people to become more independent with their spinal cord injuries,” she told 9Entertainment.

“In my case I was just incredibly lucky to have the message go down to my legs to be able to move them in the first place.

“To go from being mostly in my wheelchair to running, it’s just incredible. I never ever thought that was possible, especially when you get told, ‘You won’t walk again, you can’t do this’.”

Singapore-based doctor Dr Samuel Choudhury shared Jo’s story on Instagram, where he detailed the risks of sharing personal items such as makeup brush.

“It can still happen to anyone…say no to MRSA [and] don’t share make-up brushes,” the doctor said.

As for Jo, she is urging those who feel something isn’t quite right with their body to go and get it checked out.

“Once you’ve been dealt a not so great hand, you do have the ability to stand up and fight for a little bit more independence or to overcome trauma,” she continued to 9Entertainment.

“There’s always a possibility that you might come out better than you ever thought was possible.”

A Virginia woman who earned herself a tidy jackpot has revealed she made a pretty big mistake while purchasing her winning lottery ticket.

We’ve all heard a myriad of lottery success stories, right? More often than not, they’re the reason we all keep gambling our money.

Of course, you may be familiar with the waitress who was tipped a lottery ticket that eventually won $10 million or the group of students who ‘beat the system’ by claiming more than $6 million.

And who could forget the man dubbed the ‘luckiest’ in the world after winning the lottery twice after cheating death?

However, it’s not all plain sailing for many jackpot winners.

Some have previously discussed how receiving money has soured relations while others have ended up losing all their winnings due to keeping their victory secret from their spouse.

Luckily, the story of a Christiansburg woman’s rise to the prize falls into the more positive camp.

Last month, Miriam Long headed to a CVS store in Blacksburg and was intent on buying a Mega Millions ticket.

The resident had been keeping an eye on the draw, which had grown to a staggering $893 million at the time.

However, when she reached the Virginia Lottery Machine on South Main Street, she ‘accidentally’ selected the wrong draw.

Instead of receiving a Mega Millions ticket, Long mistakenly selected to play the Powerball.

Virginia Lottery

As per Virginia Lottery officials, the woman matched the first five winning numbers – 10-17-20-39-44.

However, she unfortunately didn’t hit the Powerball (16) while using the machine’s random Easy Pick feature.

Following her spin on the apparatus, Long realized she’d won a phenomenal $1 million in the March 18 drawing and later said that the victory was ‘overwhelming’.

“My heart was pounding,” she explained. “It’s the best mistake of my life!”

Amazingly, the CVS store was also awarded a $10,000 bonus for selling Long the lottery ticket.

As we mentioned though, not all lottery stories have happy endings.

Earlier this year, a lottery player by the name of Nicole took to social media to share her dismay after coming in inches of becoming a winner.

On March 18, Nicole shared an image to X, formerly known as Twitter, of the winning numbers of the UK’s National Lottery, Set For Life.

X/nicole21060

Winners of this game get £10,000 every month for the next 30 years, so while you may not be a millionaire, you will be sorted for the foreseeable future.

The winning numbers for the March 18 draw were 02, 11, 19, 38, 43, Life ball: 06.

Alongside the winning ticket, Nicole shared her own stake which featured the numbers 03, 12, 20, 39, 44, Life ball 06.

For the first five numbers, she was just one off changing her life.

After posting, the viral photographs got social media talking, with one user writing: “It’s quite funny, but that’s a lot closer than I ever get!! Poor you! Next time.”

A second said: “This exact thing happened to me when i was 19 you never get over it.”

Please gamble responsibly. For help, support and advice about problem gambling, call the National Problem Gambling Helpline on 1-800-GAMBLER, 24/7.

Warning: This article contains graphic images and video which some readers may find distressing.

A Texas woman has spoken out to raise awareness of a mistake she made with her contact lenses after being left blind in one eye.

Brooklyn McCasland was on holiday in Alabama with her friends two months ago when she went swimming in the sea and came out with an irritated eye.

After thinking it was probably just a ‘piece of sand’ in her eye, she visited a local doctor who thought it was a ‘regular infection’, prescribed her eyedrops and antibiotics and sent her on her way.

Little did the 23-year-old realize it was definitely not just a grain of sand. Calling all contact lens wearers out there – hear this warning.

Brooklyn McCasland thought it was probably just a grain of sand caught in her eye (Kennedy News and Media)

The discovery

Brooklyn’s right eye began clouding over and so she was referred to a specialist who scanned her eye – with the results revealing a horrifying discovery.

Instead of finding just a grain of sand stuck in the barista’s eye, the specialist found acanthamoeba parasites and what’s more, they’d dug themselves into her cornea.

The Cleveland Clinic explains: “Acanthamoeba keratitis is a rare eye infection you can get from an amoeba, a microscopic creature similar to bacteria but a little more complex.”

The rare parasitic eye infection affects the cornea and ‘usually affects one eye at a time, but it can affect both’ starting by affecting the ‘outermost layer of your cornea, the epithelium’ before going deeper.

But how did the parasites get into Brooklyn’s eye in the first place?

It turns out there was a parasite infection in Brooklyn’s eye (Kennedy News and Media)

How it happened

Well, it’s reported the parasites are believed to have got into Brooklyn’s eye when she went in the sea and got trapped as a result of her wearing her contacts while swimming.

Indeed, the Cleveland Clinic notes people who wear contacts or who are immunocompromised have ‘the highest risk of contracting’ acanthamoeba keratitis.

And after getting stuck in her eye, the parasite then burrowed into the outer layer, multiplied and then the organisms essentially began eating the tissue in Brooklyn’s eye.

She explained: “I came back for one of my appointments and I was in really, really bad pain and she said I had an abrasion on my eye.

“I had to wear a patch over my eye. I couldn’t put any of my drops in for two days.

“I came back and she took the bandage off and said the abrasion had healed but my eye infection had gotten worse because we weren’t using any drops to keep the infection down.

“She put me back on the drops. I came back in two days and my abrasion was back and my infection was still worse.

“After she took the bandage off I was completely blind in my right eye. She said it should go away but it never did. I’m pretty much permanently blind in my right eye now.”

She added: “It was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. It kind of felt like glass was in your eye.

“Sometimes if I shut my eye it would feel a little bit better but sometimes it would feel worse. It was just constant pain.”

Brooklyn was diagnosed with acanthamoeba keratitis (Kennedy News and Media)

Warnings and advice

With research indicating there ‘could be up to 1,500 cases in the US every year’, it’s important to know what to look out for when it comes to acanthamoeba keratitis.

Symptoms include:

• Redness or irritation to your eye
• Feeling like something’s stuck in your eye but you can’t see anything and washing your eye out still doesn’t help
• Your eye watering
• Being sensitive to light
• Pain in your eye
• Cloudiness to your eye
• Blurred vision

The most common way to contract the parasite is through improper contact lens use – i.e. wearing them too long, not washing your hands before application, not storing them properly, swimming with them in – injuring your eye or going into contaminated water.

Cleveland Clinic notes the condition is ‘treatable, but the best way to deal with this condition is to prevent it from happening’. But if you do contract it, there are medications available such as antiseptic drops and there are also surgical options – with Brooklyn hoping to undergo a $5,000 cornea transplant to gain back her sight in her right eye.

A GoFundMe has since been launched to help support Brooklyn who’s had to leave work and is saving up for the expensive surgery.

She reflected: “I started wearing [contact lenses] when I was seven. I wore them everywhere: to the pool, showered in my contacts and swam in my contacts. I even washed my contact case with tap water to clean it out. Now I know you’re not supposed to do it but I’ve done that for forever.

“[…] Just because it’s a rare condition, it doesn’t mean it can’t happen to you. […] People need to be careful and understand that anybody can get it.”