Postmortem reveals skydiver died of traumatic shock
There are still more questions than answers surrounding the death of an American skydiver whose lifeless body was pulled from the sea off Ambergris Caye on Thursday afternoon. A postmortem on the body of Chad Zielinksi has determined the cause of death to be traumatic shock. Police sources indicate that just about every bone in Zielinksi’s body was shattered as he hit the water at more than a hundred miles an hour. However, the autopsy report was unable to show whether Zielinksi suffered some sort of medical ailment during his drop which prevented him from opening his parachute. Checks to Zielinksi’s equipment have shown that his gear was in proper working condition. According to group leader Rich Grimm of Tsunami Skydivers, Zielinksi was an experienced skydiver and was wearing a winged suit at the time of the accident. Grimm suspects that the forty-five year old might have simply lost track of his altitude. Zielinksi’s body will be flown to California for burial services there. Zielinksi was in Belize with his wife and a number of other skydivers as part of the second annual skydiving event “Boogie in Belize” hosted in San Pedro town. Around noon on Thursday, Zielinksi and fifteen others ascended to thirteen thousand feet above the caye, but for some reason Zielinksi’s parachute never opened during his drop and he crashed into the sea just outside the reef. This morning, his fellow skydivers performed a memorial jump in his honour.