Given the injuries he endured, Masterson knows his life could have been altered forever that day. “And I was fascinated because they fly just like a broad-winged hawk.” Hang gliding, Masterson said, is the closest thing to flying like a broad-winged hawk. His accident in August was not his first in the sport after breaking his arm in 2018 on Cape Cod. When he returned to New Hampshire he connected with Morningside Flight Park in Charlestown. He went for a tandem flight with an instructor and quickly fell in love with the sport. “I had never really considered flight as an option,” he said. He’d heard about a hang gliding school in Texas, so during his ride through the state he decided to check it out. Masterson’s love of hang gliding, of soaring like the broad-winged hawk, developed during his 2016 cycling trip to Central America where he followed the migratory pattern of a kettle of hawks. ![]() “These are people that volunteer their service.” “I’m incredibly grateful to the EMTs,” Masterson said he has visited with several of his rescuers since returning home and made a donation to their efforts. It took rescue crews from Hillsborough and Deering, as well as a ropes crew from Henniker, 3½ hours to get him off the mountain for transport to Concord Hospital. He remembers taking a couple steps forward to launch and then “I essentially don’t remember the next two weeks,” Masterson said.Īfter Masterson crashed and fell, Washburn called 911 and Masterson’s wife, Tricia Rose Burt. “I had a goal, which in retrospect, it’s never good to fly with goals,” he said. Masterson said he did a lot of planning, looked at the wind for the day, its strength and thermal generation as he equates the weather elements to having enough gas in the tank. “You really have to take what the weather god gives you and the day gives you.” “You can do what the weather will allow you to do,” he said. Of course, to pull off that kind of flight, the weather has to be just right. He wanted to go further, having mapped out a series of potential landing spots over the 20 or so miles – as the crow flies – between Deering and Concord, preparing for changes in conditions. On that particular day, Masterson had bigger plans than merely gliding to the landing zone. “I had flown there several times,” Masterson said, including twice this year prior to that day in August, and never had an issue, though he had noticed the trees around his takeoff spot and even had asked to trim them at one point to avoid clipping them with his glider.Īt its highest point, Hedgehog is at 1,300 feet of elevation with a landing zone around 700 feet. He fell an estimated 20 to 50 feet on to a rocky terrace below, landing suspended upside down in his hang glider. Then he hit a thermal, stalling his glider and sending him back into the cliff he just took off from. Just after takeoff, his wing clipped a tree, slowing him down. “I should have walked away,” Masterson said. But looking back, he realizes the wind may have shifted. It looked like it would finally be the right time to step off the cliff for his flight. His friend Sam Washburn of Andover, Massachusetts, decided not to fly because of the conditions, but as Masterson waited for his window, the cloud cover cleared. ![]() ![]() On that day, he was with two other gliders. 9 and Masterson, a Hancock resident, was set to embark on a trip that – if the weather cooperated and things worked out just so – would have him soaring from Hedgehog Ridge in Deering all the way to Concord. What was supposed to be an afternoon of gliding through the skies like the broad-winged hawk, a bird that Masterson has fawned over for years through his work with the Harris Center for Conservation Education, turned into a 10-second ride and a horrific hang gliding accident that Masterson fully understands could have resulted in a much different outcome. Eric Masterson is thankful every day – that he is still able to walk, to still be alive.
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