Teen Lives To Tell About Falling From Plane In Chickasha

A Texas teenager fell 3,500 feet in a skydiving accident in Chickasha, and Friday she explained what it was like the moment she realized what was happening. 

Friday, April 24th 2015, 11:03 pm

By: News 9


A Texas teenager fell 3,500 feet in a skydiving accident in Chickasha, and Friday she explained what it was like the moment she realized what was happening. Seventeen-year-old Makenzie Wethington's story caught the attention of the world as everyone was in awe of how she lived to tell about it.

“I remember jumping out of the plane, and I remember looking and seeing that it wasn't working,” Wethington said. “I remember trying to open the reserve, and I wasn't strong enough, and it got jammed.”

Makenzie spiraled 3,500 feet to the ground.

“I just remember screaming for help and feeling desperate, and I just needed help, and I knew it wasn't coming,” she said.

Then she blacked out, doesn't remember the rest of the fall and doesn't remember hitting the ground, but that help came.

“I really think it was a miracle, and I know that God was definitely watching over me,” she said.

Nobody, not even doctors, could explain how she survived and how her injuries weren't really that severe given what she'd fallen from a plane. Doctors said she wasn't even the most injured person in the hospital that night; a miracle.

“What this really means is God watched over us,” her surgeon, Dr. Jeffery Bender of OU Medical Center, said. “God takes care of us, and God took care of Makenzie.”

More than a year later, she's back in Oklahoma. Her doctors gave her the ‘Tough Gal Award,' but she doesn't take the credit. It took an army.

“With the help of my family and my community the journey was hard, but it was doable and manageable, and with their support I was able to overcome my injuries,” she said.

Continue to follow Wethington's journey.

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