How Northern Ireland skydiver survived crashing to earth from 6,500ft and hitting ground at 100mph

My Piece of Sky is her story of courage, resilience, love and tenacity, and is launched today on the 27th anniversary of Joanne’s accident. Joanne said that the story is hoped to resonate with any readers who have experienced trauma, a serious accident, or are caring for someone who is recovering from physical or mental challenges or addictions.

The Co Antrim woman told Belfast Telegraph that the day of the accident “was the most horrendous thing that has ever happened to me”.

“I honestly didn’t know whether I would live or die, and, looking back on it now, it becomes a sort of dream and you don’t know if it as real,” she said.

On the day in question, April 1 1995, Joanne was about to step out of a plane to take part in her 65th skydive with her parachute instructor and boyfriend at the time, Joe.

“The two of us met in freefall and I was going too low and he was trying to save me, his parachute came out but both my main and reserve came out meaning that they both became entangled and I was left with nothing above my head,” she explained. “I was left spiralling to the ground at 100mph and ended up with horrific injuries.

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Lucky escape: Joanne McConville almost lost her life when a parachute jump went disastrously wrong

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“Joe was uninjured but had to live with the trauma of watching me plummet to the ground.”

Joanne lost a lot of her teeth, broke a number of facial bones and bones in her leg, pelvis and arms as well as a small skull fracture and internal injuries.

It took her almost a year and a half to recover fully before she was able to return to work as an NHS nurse. Two years later, Joanne and Joe married.

“I was incredibly thankful to survive and that I didn’t end up with any spinal or head injuries, just broken bones, but the trauma afterwards was much worse,” she said.

“I was only able to talk openly about my experience some 25 years on and this is not a self-help book, it is more about what I learnt from this near-death experience and how I picked myself up. My main reason for writing it is to help people in a similar situation to know that there is hope and you can come through this and you can carry on with life.”

“This was truly a one in a million accident, and Joe only stopped skydiving 10 years ago.”

Joanne’s first skydive was three years before her accident.

She said she started parachuting to raise funds for her son Matthew who was born with a hip problem.

“Skydiving was like freedom,” she said. “They were the most exciting three years of my life, and I’m so glad I can live to tell the tale.”

My Piece of Sky is available online from Saturday at www.JoanneMcConville.com and Amazon