Condition of one Army jumper has improved after accident
Doctors have upgraded the condition of one of the three U.S. Army soldiers seriously injured in a parachuting accident over Homestead early Tuesday morning.
The soldier, not identified by the Army, is still in Jackson Memorial Hospital, but his condition has gone from serious to fair, Sgt. 1st Class Robert Dodge, spokesman for U.S. Army Recruiting Command, said Thursday.
The other two soldiers are still in critical condition, Dodge said.
The Army has not released details of what went wrong when the soldiers, members of the service’s Golden Knights parachute demonstration team, were performing night training in the skies over Homestead Air Reserve Base around 4 a.m. Tuesday.
The Golden Knights perform at popular venues nationwide, like professional sporting games, parades and college bowl games. They are also known for taking dignitaries, celebrities, teachers, journalists and community leaders on tandem free-fall jumps from as high as 14,000 feet.
Former President George Herbert Walker Bush celebrated four birthdays, starting with his 75th, by jumping out of airplanes tethered to a member of the Golden Knights.
The team is based at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, but its winter home is Homestead.
This story was originally published February 14, 2019 at 5:23 PM.
