Med student dies in parachute accident

ORMOC CITY, Leyte—A skydiving student was killed after his parachute malfunctioned during a 3,500-foot jump over Barangay Airport here Thursday afternoon, authorities said.

The body of Loui Raymond Pestaño, 24, was found in a rice paddy 150 meters away from the airport runway. The force of the impact caused a two-foot deep imprint on the ground.

Pestaño, a resident of Cebu City, was a medical student of the University of Sto. Tomas in Manila.

He went to Ormoc to learn how to skydive from members of the Cebu Parachute Club who were scheduled to do a skydiving exhibition in the morning of October 20 as part of the city’s 64th Charter Day celebration.

He and Engr. Gil Gantuangco, an Ormoc Builders Association member, were supposed to do a beginner’s jump at an altitude of 3,500 feet at around 2:20 p.m. on Thursday.

But Gantuangco got cold feet after the briefing. Only Pestaño pushed through and jumped off from a Cessna plane with his instructor, identified only as Gary.

Witnesses said they saw Pestaño whirl in the air after the jump.

But his main parachute didn’t open when he pulled it, said Barangay Punta chairman Glenn Alvin.

He said the student might to have lost consciousness while he was spinning because Pestaño was not able to pull his reserve chute.

Pestaño fell into the middle of a rice field.

Resident Dennis Omega said that when the body fell to the ground, he heard a “bomb-like explosion.”

Members of the Ormoc Rescue team brought him to Ormoc Sugarcane Planter’s Association—Farmer’s Medical Center, where physicians declared him dead.