KEY POINTS:
A skydiving instructor who plunged to Earth near Taupo when both his parachutes failed says his last words before impact were, "I'm going to die".
Michael Holmes, 25, went into a spin when his main parachute became tangled during a 4000m drop over Taupo last week, but survived when he landed in a blackberry bush.
"When the second parachute didn't open, I realised it was all over," he told the Times newspaper in London from his bed in Waikato Hospital.
"I was going to die. You don't have much time to say goodbye. I just said: 'I'm going to die'."
He captured his plunge on a helmet-mounted camera, which kept filming even after he crashed into the blackberry at Five Mile Bay, puncturing his lung and breaking an ankle.
"The next thing I remember is seeing friends, firemen, ambulances and police dogs."
The New Zealand Parachute Industry Association is investigating.
Police are reported to be considering whether the main chute failed to open. That would have sent Mr Holmes into a "roman candle" - a rapid spinning plunge with the unopened chute streaming behind him - causing him to black out.
The ordeal was witnessed by John Siddles, a local man, and his 18-year-old son, Adam, who were watching the parachutists to decide if they wanted to try it themselves.
"One of the skydivers was coming down and going round and round," Mr Siddles said. "He looked like he was all tangled up. He just came straight down. We decided it's not for us."
Mr Holmes, the youngest Briton to qualify as a skydiving instructor, has been active in the sport for seven years.
Originally from Jersey in the Channel Islands, he has worked at the Great Lake Skydiving Centre since he arrived in New Zealand three years ago.
He was filming about 10 people from Taupo Tandem Skydiving when he jumped, but apparently his predicament was not noticed by the other jumpers.
Hamish Funnell, the manager of the skydiving centre, told London's Daily Telegraph that when he visited Mr Holmes in hospital he was "cracking jokes and hassling the nurses". He knew of no similar escapes.
- NZPA
