KALISPELL - Flathead County officials say a 27-year-old quadriplegic man with five years of skydiving experience died in a weekend skydiving accident in northwestern Montana.
Sheriff Chuck Curry says Zack Fogle of Kingston, Washington, died Saturday afternoon when his parachute failed to open after a jump at the Lost Prairie Boogie, an annual skydiving event near Marion.
Undersheriff Jordan White says Fogle had limited mobility in his extremities after being struck by a car in high school, but had a custom-built parachute and was certified as a skydiver. He had completed more than 125 jumps and had participated in the Lost Prairie Boogie before.
An investigation found Fogle failed to manually deploy his primary or emergency parachutes and an emergency deployment mechanism that would have released his emergency chute was not activated prior to the jump.