A tragic accident involving a man happened at a high school in Tennessee on Friday right before a football game. The skydiving granddad plunged to his death while performing a stunt, just before the players got onto the field.
Richard Sheffield, 55, died before hundreds of horrified spectators on Friday night after landing on the David Crockett High School field. Sheffield was part of the pregame ceremony at the annual Musket Bowl game. When the tragedy happened, David Crockett High, located in Jonesborough, was supposed to play against Daniel Boone High School.
The 55-year-old skydiver, an employee of the skydiving company Jump TN, was transported to a nearby hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.
A newly released video shows Sheffield starting to fall during a stunt. Video footage released by a local news outlet showed the skydiver spinning in a circle as he plunged to the ground.
In the video, you can hear hundreds of frightened spectators screaming when they realized something was wrong with either the skydiver or his parachute as Sheffield continued to fall at a very high speed – way too fast for him to land safely.
The tragic incident happened around 6:30 pm on Friday evening, 30 minutes before the game started.
Jerry Boyd, the School District Superintendent for Washington County, called the accident “unimaginable.”
Speaking to a local news station, Tyler Smith, one of the hundreds of spectators who witnessed the fall and a sophomore from Daniel Boone High School, said the accident happened suddenly, out-of-the-blue. The teenager, who captured the incident on his phone, said everyone around him was shocked and felt helpless because they did not know what to do.
While announcing the accident, Superintendent Boyd offered his condolences and sympathies to Sheffield’s family and said the tragedy saddened the community. He urged everyone to keep the family in their thoughts and to pray for them as they dealt with the horrific loss of their beloved father, grandfather, and husband.
Sheffield had been part of a group of paratroopers who had entertained spectators before the school’s Musket Bowl for many years.
Angela Alley, Jump TN’s spokesperson, said that Sheffield was a very experienced diver, having done more than 1,500 jumps. She said they did not notice anything unusual about Sheffield’s dive on Friday and that Sheffield had deployed the parachute without any issue.
The entire football field held a moment of silence for Sheffield before the game started.
According to Boyd, the school district provided mental health professionals to each school on Monday to help the students who witnessed Friday’s incident deal with the trauma.
He said they were extremely concerned about the mental well-being of the students who attended Friday’s football game and witnessed the accident. Boyd also said it was unclear if they would continue allowing skydivers to perform at future events.
