{"id":116322,"date":"2026-01-13T12:57:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T12:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/116322\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T12:57:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T12:57:07","slug":"paraglider-plummets-500-feet-into-water-off-florida-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/116322\/","title":{"rendered":"Paraglider plummets 500 feet into water off Florida coast"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 A paraglider plummeted 500 feet from the sky into the Atlantic Ocean off the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clickorlando.com\/topic\/Strange_Florida\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.clickorlando.com\/topic\/Strange_Florida\/\">Florida coast<\/a> \u2014 and survived.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Cellphone video captured the plunge and the rescue, which took place Friday off Ocean Reef Park in Riviera Beach.<\/p>\n<p>Strange Florida<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kiwhtN\">Get news of the weird &#8212; Florida style &#8212; sent to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Officials said a motorized paraglider fell into the water and witnesses on the beach jumped into action.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Witnesses said the 52-year-old Florida man was alive and above the water when they reached him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cWhen I heard the (distance from which he fell), I was actually quite blown away,\u201d lifeguard Sarah Williamson said. \u201cFive-hundred feet is an incredible thing to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The man was taken to the shore after suffering minor injuries, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 kiwhtN\">Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIVIERA BEACH, Fla. \u2013 A paraglider plummeted 500 feet from the sky into the Atlantic Ocean off the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,58715,723,2546,55721],"class_list":{"0":"post-116322","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-florida-headlines","10":"tag-florida-news","11":"tag-paragliding","12":"tag-rescue","13":"tag-strange-florida","14":"tag-viral-video"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}