The Joy Trip Project

After a long career as a professional skier and BASE jumper Karina Hollekim was living her dream. In 2006 at the paragliding world cup in Switzerland she and a group of friends were invited to do an exhibition jump. It was just going to be a routine flight in wing suits sailing away from an airplane to entertain a crowd of thousands below. Flying high overhead Karina couldn’t have been more happy. "I was there with friends I was having fun and everything was just perfect," she said. Karina made the jump from a small plane and carved  turns through the sky in her wing suit. As she flew  she filmed the others with a camera mounted on her helmet. "I could see the smile on the face of my friend and everything was great. I was suppose to open the parachute and land on the grassy field in front of the spectators. I could hear the clapping and roaring from the thousands of spectators underneath," she said. "And then a split second later I realized that something had gone wrong. And 15 seconds later my life was changed forever."