Ewa Wiśnierska only wanted to train for a few days before the Paragliding World Championship.
It was February 2007, and she was flying alongside 200 other competitors near Manilla, a small town in New South Wales, Australia, when a cumulonimbus storm literally sucked her into the sky. The suction carried her to almost 9.940 meters in altitude, higher than the summit of Everest, with only a simple jacket as protection against the cold. At that altitude, the air has barely any oxygen and the temperature hovers around -55°C: Ewa lost consciousness and drifted for almost 45 minutes, freezing inside the storm.
She awoke covered in ice when the paraglider had already descended to 6.000 meters. She only landed three and a half hours later, 87 kilometers from where she had taken off. Not everyone was as lucky. He Zhongping, a 42-year-old Chinese competitor caught in the same storm, died that day. Nearly two decades later, Ewa continues to fly for pleasure and teach others to do the same.
