As She Glided Over the Alps, a Plane Came Out of Nowhere

A peaceful glide over the Austrian Alps turned into a near disaster for one paraglider when a small plane sliced through her canopy midair, though she walked away with just bruises. Police in Salzburg say the 44-year-old woman was flying over Piesendorf on Saturday when a 28-year-old pilot on a scenic flight in his Cessna hit her glider with his propeller, shredding the wing and sending her spinning thousands of feet above the ground, per NBC News.

Video posted to Instagram by a woman IDing herself only as Sabrina shows the moment a white aircraft suddenly shows up not far from her, then rips through the fabric just above her. As the woman plummets, she reaches for her reserve chute, which opens cleanly. The torn glider hangs in two pieces behind her as she descends and lands on a grassy patch, barely missing a shrub. Both she and the pilot avoided serious injury, according to police. "I actually still can't believe that I'm sitting here typing this," she wrote in the caption, adding that she escaped with minor injuries.