he could hear sirens of rescue workers rushing in below he worried he might hit a house power lines a road a parking lot in any event something hard or deadly yet he felt his fear subsiding i relaxed he said because i knew i had no control of what was about to happen to me and it would not do any good to fight it as it turned out walzs fall was broken by a small tree which snagged his balloon and pitched him out of his basket leaving him hospitalized with a broken pelvis and other injuries what went through my mind was i hope this doesnt hurt and what will death be like walz said i had absolutely no control of what i was going to smash into i had to hit that single tree in just the perfect spot to save my life what are the odds to put it in words that someone told me gods angels guided me to the tree he was there under the tree with his hands open to catch me like walz shirley dygert 54 a firsttime skydiver thought of her family as she believed she was falling to her death but her instructor david hartsock 44 who was strapped to her back had an entirely different series of thoughts going through his head how to save both of their lives dygert believes that in the end hartsock sacrificed himself to save her as they spun out of control on that 13000foot tandem jump outside houston on aug 1 2009 after we went around three times we were sort of picking up speed and i was getting dizzy and i said i dont know if i could take any more of this dave and he said ill be honest with you were in trouble dygert told abcnewscom i thought this is how im going to die and then i thought i would see my mom she had already passed and then when i thought about my mom i thought about my kids on the ground seeing this i said oh god i dont want my kids to see this and then i started praying hartsock whod been on more than 800 jumps said he worked his way through a mental checklist of emergency procedures but none did the trick the last thing youre going to do is panic he said you panic you lose your skill nobody knows how theyll react psychologist there may not be a universal response sandra levy ceren a clinical psychologist in del mar california who has worked with victims of trauma said she is not surprised the by varied reactions reported by people who believe they were falling to their deaths i think that there may not be a universal response she said i think it may be the kind of person someone is the kind of life experiences they may have that may have them react in different ways some people