Hang Glider Holds On For Dear Life After Realizing He’s Not Strapped In

Chris Gursky was vacationing in Switzerland and decided to go hang gliding for the first time. And who can blame him, as there is no better way to take in those bucolic Alpine vistas than from 4,000 feet in the air. But there was a problem..

The instructor in the tandem flight forgot to attach Gursky’s safety harness to the glider. Only after launching into the air did they realize that he was completely untethered and hanging on with only his bare hands.

“At one point I looked down and I saw the scenery down there, it was all the treetops changing colors and the little farm houses and I thought to myself, ‘That is beautiful. I am going to fall to my death there,’” Gursky told CBS News. “I probably had five seconds left in me because my hand was starting to slip off that bar.”

But as you can see in the video above, Gursky held on for dear life for a grueling 2 minutes 14 seconds, before ejecting over a grass field. He suffered a fractured wrist that required surgery, along with a torn bicep muscle. But all things considered, he’s lucky to be alive.

Despite his terrifying ordeal, Gursky says that he will go hang gliding again, as “I did not get to enjoy my first flight.” Crazy stuff.