SKYDIVER SACRIFICE

Skydiving instructor Robert Cook has just been awarded an Australian Bravery Award, one of Australia’s most prestigious honors. But the recognition is bittersweet for Cook’s family: Robert himself is not alive to receive it.

The 21-year-old man was given the posthumous award for a remarkable act of selflessness: In August of 2006, he was giving a skydiving lesson to a young woman in Missouri when the plane they were flying on began to have engine trouble. Investigators believe the plane had engine failure. A witness reported seeing its right engine in flames moments after take-off.

Robert knew the plane was going to crash – but he believed it was his duty to save the life of Kimberly Dear, the 21-year-old Australian woman he’d taken on board for a skydiving lesson.

“What [Robert] did was slip her into his lap and hooked up her harness and then told her that on the impact that he would take most of the impact,” Robert’s father, Mark Cook, told The Sydney Morning Herald.

When the small plane crashed into a tree, the instructor and six other people died when their plane hit a St Louis, in the US state of Missouri. But thanks to his noble sacrifice, Kimberley Dear survived the accident.

power pole and nosedived into a tree soon after take-off from an airport near

Her father, Bill, of Sydenham in Melbourne's north-west, said the final moments of the life of skydiving instructor Robert Cook, had been truly heroic. "He's a hero. There's no other way I can describe it," Mr. Dear told from his daughter's bedside. "It was utterly amazing.” "When he realised the plane was actually going to crash, he grabbed Kimberley and he calmly talked to her and he told her that the plane was going to crash. " Told her what to expect and what to do and kept her calm and focused her attention on him and what he was saying rather than what was happening around her.

"Kim was going to do a tandem jump with Robert so that she had the harness for the tandem jump on as Robert did as well, so Robert actually clipped the harness together and, as the plane was coming down, he put his arms around her and pulled her close.
"As he pulled her close, her head rested on his shoulders. He put his head against hers to stop it flopping around.
"He said to her: 'As the plane is about to hit the ground, make sure you're on top of me so that I'll take the force of the impact.'

Her sister, Tracey Dear, speaking in Melbourne, said Mr Cook must have known he was giving his life for Kimberley's as the plane plunged to earth.


"I can't believe that in this world when so many people are so jaded that there are people out there like that.
"He met Kimberley, as far as I know, that day. I would do that for her but I can't believe that a stranger who just met her would knowingly give up his life for her.
"I just want his family to know we appreciate that from the bottom of our heart."

"There's nothing ... I can't even put it into words but the only thing I can think of is saying thank you so much," she said.

Though she suffered spinal injuries and a broken pelvis, the young survivor was on her feet again within months of the accident, after a grueling rehabilitation process. “There were so many fractures, and spinal fractures, but there was no spinal cord injury,”  “It’s been said many times here that it’s amazing that Kimberley walked again after this plane crash.”

Five days after the accident, Kimberley’s father, Bill Dear, attended the funeral for the young man who had given his life to save his daughter. “I will think of him like a son,” he told the crowd.

Though Robert’s death was a tragic loss to his own family, Robert’s father believes that his son’s tragic death serves as an example of his heroic character. “When everyone else panicked, Robert was calm,” he told The Age. “He was able to help alleviate her fears. That is Robert to a tee. He cared about other people and, for sure, he gave his life to save someone else’s.”

photo credit: google.com

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