A family is holding their breath that surgery will work after a husband and brother is horribly injured ina a paragliding accident.
On Sunday, Tyler Langenfeld was paragliding in Palomar Mountain he suddenly lost the air in his glider, and fell more than 30 feet to the ground.
“He landed on his feet, and he broke both legs and his whole spine and his tailbone, very severe,” his sister, Roberta Annis, said. “He’s critical, it’s a very serious situation.”
Langenfeld was airlifted to Palomar Medical Center, straight into the trauma center.
“The doctor did say that he’ll be in a lot of pain for the rest of his life,” Annis said.
First- it was the devastation of what happened, thoughts of how to pay for it for all of the medical expenses set in.
Annis said her brother had just started a new job, was in the probationary period, and his health insurance has not kicked in yet. Costs aside, he won't know if he can continue his career after he's out of the hospital.
If he walks again, Doctors said it’s unlikely he will have the strength to continue his work as an airplane mechanic.
“He’s just a wonderful, loving, caring, kind man and he doesn’t deserve this,” Annis said. “He absolutely loved (paragliding), he loved it. He just loves being outdoors and he’d taken up the paragliding just about a year ago and he was learning to do that out of Torrey Pines.”
The family has set up a GoFundMe account to raise money for Langenfeld’s medical expenses.
