Curl Curl woman Claire Willmott critical after flying fox ride accident
A woman is in a critical condition in hospital after surgery for injuries she suffered when she was flung from a flying fox ride set up in a northern beaches’ back yard.
A woman is in a critical condition in hospital after surgery for injuries she suffered when she was flung from a flying fox ride set up in a northern beaches’ back yard.
Claire Willmott, a mother of three young children from Curl Curl, was riding the 40m long cable zip line during a family gathering on a property in Belrose when she flew from the seat into a tree trunk.
Six ambulance crews and an ambulance helicopter were called to the address in Morgan Rd about 3.30pm on Sunday to treat the 37-year-old for severe head and spinal injuries, She had also suffered a punctured lung and numerous fractured ribs.
Ms Willmott, a senior executive in the pharmaceutical industry, was found unconscious at the base of the tree, with a blood coming from a wound at the back of her head.
After being stabilised at the scene she was taken by road to Royal North Shore Hospital.
A spokesman for the hospital said on Tuesday that she was now in the intensive care unit in a critical, but stable condition.
More than 20 people, including Ms Willmott’s family, were at the home of a relative.
A number of children had been using the 40m long flying fox — strung on steel cables between two large trees — in the 30 minutes before the incident.
Witnesses told Northern Beaches Police that about 3pm the majority of the group walked to the flying fox installed by the property owners on a downhill section of land about 18 months ago.
On average the steel cable is approximately 2.5m above the ground. It is fitted with a brake that applies friction to the steel cable and slows the rider who is on a plastic seat that is joined to the mechanism with a rope.
The chair is supposed to stop 8m from the bottom tree after a plastic block, affixed to the steel cable, acts as a “fail safe” if the rider does not apply the brake.
A pulley pushes the block until a bungy cord reaches the extent of its elasticity and stops the rider from reaching the end of the cable and coming to an abrupt stop.
Police said the injured woman continued to the end of the zip line at “great speed”, but the fail-safe plastic block seems not to have slowed her to a safe speed.
“When the pulley came to an abrupt stop the motion carried by the woman has caused the seat to swing forwards and upwards to the point that the woman completed a half backflip as she was ejected from the seat,” a spokesman said.
Family members rushed to the unconscious woman’s aid. She was bleeding from the back of her head.
Police set up a crime scene due to the seriousness of the woman’s injuries.
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