‘How I recovered from a 5,000ft fall’

A paragliding instructor who fell 1,500m (5000 feet) has opened an exhibition of his paintings that describes as a “love letter to the living bee.”

Jonny Fox in Brighton had been competing in the British paragliding championships in September 2023 when he had his accident.

The exhibition in the Crypt gallery in Seaford is titled Back Story and shows the determination of the 50 -year -old to represent enough time to create landscape oil paintings, which, according to him, helped his recovery.

“After my accident, my world shrunk immensely,” he said. “My thoughts had no more than five minutes in the future, and painting has just opened something again.”

Jonny was paragliding in northern Spain when he had problems, falling to the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains.

The lay in the forest floor cannot move.

“I don’t know if it was the amount of adrenaline that I just pumped my body, but I knew that life, nature, mountain and forest had me, and that my friends and other pilots were going to look for me,” he added.

The RAF official remembers having a “very good start” in the race, gaining height along with two vultures.

“I was enjoying flying with the birds, so I suddenly experienced the most violent air I have been,” he said.

“The paragliding folded like a wash bag”, sending it to an “accelerated spiral immersion.”

He implemented his reserve parachute before experiencing another turbulent area or wind.

“That was the first moment I was a little scared,” he said.

Relate the trees, which only broke its fall for a “microsecond”, fell the last 15m (49 feet) to the ground, fracturing its spine.

A bone fragment to his spinal channel was also pushed.

In a few hours, the Mountain Civil Rescue team of the Civil Guard of Spain was transferred by the Forest of Spain, which was documented on Spanish Television.

Duration his time in the hospital in Spain said that music helped him deal with the trauma of the accident, as well as the operation of joining rods and screws in his spine.

“I listed the same two albums every morning at the hospital,” he said, including Elbow’s Live in Jodrell Bank.

“Every time Elbow played a day like this, tears would simply start, and I raised the entire song.

“It was better than any of the analgesic drugs that were giving me,” he added.

Upon his return to the United Kingdom, and with a long wait for the physiotherapy of the NHS, the friends, the colleagues and the “close point” paragliding community they contacted to give advice, he explained.

Good physiotherapists, as well as cranial therapy, and everything from yoga, acupuncture and hydrotherapy were transformers, he added.

The beneficial organization for public officials also helped finance a series of advice sessions that helped with post -traumatic episodes, he said.

“The RAF has also been incredible to give me free time for my rehabilitation and support my return to work,” he added.

But it was his love for landscape painting that had given him an “extra sense of purpose.”

He had been presented to practice by Brighton’s professional artist, Tony Parsons, who Jonny said it was “incredible and mentor support.”

Eight months after his accident, he said that he can now represent up to one hour to capture landscapes.

“I love the excuse of being able to look at a view without thinking that you are crazy,” he added.

Despite their wounds, they had bone “so many silver fierce” to their accident, said Jonny, “Altegh, I would like to put my friends and family again, of course.”

“I heard a saying that we all have two lives, and our second life begins when we realize that we have done only one,” he said.

“He has a gift in many ways and made me realize how beautiful life is.

My background history can be seen in the Crypt GallerySeaford, until Sunday, April 20.

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