Hang-gliding instructor could barely walk, now teaches people to fly
But while she happily flies now, 27 years ago Lisa worried she wouldn't even be able to walk.
"I got run over by a four-wheel-drive and my left leg actually got fully dislocated off," she said.
"I couldn't feel it anymore."
Lisa, then 21, was training for a major multi-sports competition near her home in Queenstown, in New Zealand, when the accident happened.
Rushed to hospital, Lisa said emergency doctors considered amputating her leg.
Thankfully, surgeons were able to save her limb, but gave her a grim prognosis.
"It was really gutting.
"But I say, 'One door shut, another one opened.'"
Recovering in hospital, Lisa said she received an unexpected visitor — the driver who ran over her.
"I think he felt quite guilty, so he started seeing me all the time," she said.
"We ended up dating for two years."
Better yet, he was a tandem paraglider and took Lisa for a flight as soon as she could walk.
"You're so far from the earth, you feel so free," she said.
"You're riding currents that you can't see, but you can feel.
"You do feel like you're a bird, you feel connected."
Lisa was "hooked" and started paragliding every day, even during lunch breaks at her retail job.
"I was good at selling because I was so happy all the time," she said.
Lisa then learned how to hang glide, which involves pilots flying underneath a rigid, triangular frame rather than under a parachute-like wing.
But she said that drew protests from her boyfriend, as hang gliding had a much bigger physical strain on her injured leg.
"I did my first solo and I was so happy, but I couldn't tell him, so I thought it [was] probably time to move on."
Over the years, Lisa's passion for hang gliding and paragliding grew stronger.
So much so that she has built a three-decade career as a paragliding and hang-gliding instructor.
She has also competed in international competitions.
Now based near Beaudesert in Queensland, Lisa has seen the number of young people learning to hang glide drop significantly.
She said rising insurance premiums, membership fees for clubs, and the cost of equipment had made "a lot of instructors drop out of the sport".
"Most instructors only put through six people a year, so if you're paying thousands and thousands of dollars in insurance, you're not even going to be getting it back.
"The sport is not looking real good."
Hang gliding grew in popularity from the 1960s but enthusiasts began shifting towards paragliding in the 1990s, according to the Sports Aviation Federation of Australia [SAFA].
"A paraglider is a bit more convenient to set up. It only takes five or 10 minutes compared to half an hour or an hour for some of the more advanced hang gliders," SAFA president Alistair Dickie said.
Alistair said about a quarter of SAFA's 3,000 members were hang gliders, while around 75 per cent were paragliders.
He estimates there are fewer than 10 hang-gliding schools left in Australia.
While there are some perceptions that hang gliding and paragliding are dangerous, Lisa said the sport was as "safe as you want to make it".
"If you fly in the wrong conditions or with equipment that's not good, well, you're asking for trouble."
A 2021 study of injury-related fatalities in Australian sport by researchers at Edith Cowan University found that more people died in skydiving and parachuting accidents over a 19-year period.
Between July 2000 and December 2019, there were 20 deaths linked to unpowered hang gliding, and 19 deaths linked to unpowered paragliding — equating to one death per year in each sport.
However, over the same period, there were 36 deaths linked to skydiving and parachuting, and 23 deaths of people participating in aerobatics.
Alistair said the number of safety tests conducted on paragliding equipment had increased significantly in recent decades.
Another factor that could be contributing to the declining participation in paragliding and hang gliding is the costs associated with them.
Alistair said that while they were cheaper than other forms of aviation, anyone wanting to take up either sport would have to find about $10,000 to buy the gear and undergo training.
But he said the feeling of soaring across the sky was unmatched.
"Stepping off the hill late in the day into air that's going up, and floating around — soaring — is just so relaxing and lovely."
Lisa described hang gliding as amazing, but it required participants to be strong.
"You need to be fit and fully committed," she said.
"It needs to be in the public eye more because if you don't see it, people don't even think about it."
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