Video shows paraglider's heart-stopping fall after plane collision

A heart-stopping video has captured the mid-air collision of a small plane and paraglider, sending the latter tumbling toward the earth.

The video, posted to Instagram buy user @sab-thi or "Sabrina" shows her soaring through the air in clear skies over northern Austria.

A buzzing sound is heard before a small plane, which Sabrina identified as a Cessna 172, swoops into frame and tears through her paragliding canopy.

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The canopy shredded, Sabrina starts falling toward the faraway ground.

Over muffled exclamations, she manages to deploy her emergency reserve parachute and free her tangled legs from the harness to land safely - even narrowly avoiding hitting a tree.

"I actually still can't believe that I'm sitting here typing this and apart from a few nasty bruises and bruises all around nothing really happened," she wrote in a translated caption.

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The collision took place on May 23, on what apparently was Sabrina's birthday.

Both Sabrina and the plane pilot, a 28-year-old man, escaped serious injury, police said.

"The propeller of the motor plane severely damaged the paraglider, prompting the experienced paraglider to deploy her reserve parachute," police said in a statement.

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