A Miami man named his team of Cuban-born skydivers. Friday, his parachute had a problem
There’s no count of how many planes Miami resident Yuset Hernandez jumped out of in his 51 years. The first, fellow Team Eagle skydiver Edel Diaz said, was in Cuba when Hernandez was 15 or 16 years old.
The last was Friday.
In practice for the Krawl’n for the Fallen charity event in Starke, Hernandez fatally crashed. Search teams from Bradford County Fire Rescue, the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office and Clay County Fire Rescue Special Operations found Hernandez north of Keystone Airport.
The Facebook page for the event, which raises money for the families of police officers who die on duty, said Hernandez “had an issue with his primary parachute. He cut away and deployed the second but landed in very dense overgrowth area.”
Between donations and a raffle, Krawl’n for the Fallen participants raised $4,200 for Yuset’s family and set up a page for more donations.
Team Eagle jumped Saturday, as planned, but also in Hernandez’s honor.
“He was the one who named the team,” Diaz said in an email to the Miami Herald.
Each of the seven Team Eagle members was born in Cuba, where Hernandez’s daughter and grandson still live. Hernandez came to the United States in 2003 and, Diaz said, became the first Cuban to win a medal in a U.S. skydiving competition.
Team Eagle switched its Facebook profile picture to a shot of Hernandez before he released from the plane on his last jump. In another post, they captioned it, “This is the memory that will remain in our hearts ... that smile showing the happiness you felt until the last moment, Brother...!!!!! Blue Skies Black Death...”
This story was originally published November 17, 2020 at 1:49 PM.
