soloist falls from Fairview Dome 7/9/2011

Regarding free soloing- falling early is often the best strategy.

Twenty-two year old, Vesna Vulovic, was a flight attendant on Yugoslav Airlines DC-9 enroute from Stockholm to Belgrade. A bomb, which may have been planted in the front baggage compartment of the plane, exploded onboard when the aircraft was at 33,330 ft. Vulovic was in the tail section that fell to Earth. It landed at just the right angle on a slope of snow covered mountains. She was the only survivor among the 28 passengers and crew. She broke both her legs and was paralyzed from the waist down. She was in a coma for 27 days. Her recovery took 17 months. She continued to fly with Yugoslav Airlines for 20 more years.

She holds the world record, according to the Guinness Book of Records, for surviving the highest fall without a parachute: 10,160 meters (33,333 feet).

"I turned to see the soloist facing away from the wall and skidding down the slab at a terrifying rate of speed. He had fallen at the crux nearly 100' above my position. The soloist miraculously landed on the lip of the snow patch ... he hopped up and announce that it was, "time to go home." He then walked past my wife, took to steps onto the snow patch, lost his footing and fell again. This time he slid down the snow patch nearly 100 meters and narrowly missed two mid size boulders at the base."