SAS soldier’s survival: Skydiving accident to thriving family life

• Former SAS soldier Jono Magee survived a severe skydiving accident thanks to a rapid medical response and whole blood transfusions.
• A decade-long Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter and New Zealand Blood Service partnership played a crucial role in his recovery.
• Experts say the expectant dad’s survival highlights the effectiveness of the Trauma Code Crimson process in reducing haemorrhagic shock deaths.

When SAS soldier Jono Magee crashed into the ground while sport skydiving on his day off, the Aucklander’s life was saved by the chain of survival medical process that began in a rural skydive landing zone and continued all the way to surgery in a city hospital. Four years, one engagement and two babies on-the-way later he tells Cherie Howie his story of survival, as Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter and New Zealand Blood Service mark a decade-long whole blood supply partnership that’s still saving Kiwi lives.

Jono Magee will never know for sure what speed he hit the ground when a trick skydiving manoeuvere went horribly wrong on an early spring Saturday morning in north-west Auckland.

It was an otherwise ordinary jump for the then-SAS soldier who’d taken up sport skydiving in his spare time, crossing the city to Parakai to jump out of a plane and polish his skills before an upcoming competition.

The 31-year-old was practising canopy piloting, also known as swooping, where a skydiver dives their canopy toward the ground to gain speed before flattening out and flying through a set of gates to measure speed, time and distance.

“Some guys overseas [have] recorded at over 150 kilometres an hour in a full dive, and this was coming out of a full dive … [but I also] spoke to one of the guys who works at the parachute factory and he thought 60kmh to 80kmh.

“I’d say [I was diving at] anywhere between 50kmh to 100kmh … but anyway, it’s a guessing game - I hit the ground really hard.”

Jono Magee is lucky to be alive, after he crashed at speed while canopy skydiving in 2020. Photo / Michael Craig

 Magee didn’t have the steel body of a vehicle to offer some protection.

“Broken femur, dislocated left shoulder, a lot of internal injuries, I think five or six fractured vertebrae and a really severe TBI (traumatic brain injury) as well”, says Magee, on some of the injuries that left him fighting for his life in a rural Auckland paddock.

He doesn’t remember them all.

Jono Magee during his long recovery in Auckland City Hospital, after he crashed while skydiving.

Neither, unsurprisingly, does he remember the accident - or the couple of days preceding.

He’s been told a crosswind may have been at play when he misjudged when to pull out of the dive.

“The last thing I remember from before the accident is getting pulled into my boss’ office and him basically telling me off.

“[And] they put me in an induced coma after the accident, so I’ve got no memory for weeks and weeks. No memory of ICU [intensive care unit] or HDU [high dependency unit], and then just a jumble of memories of the general wards.”

Medical staff, family and friends filled the gaps, starting with the first moments after Magee struck the ground at 10.25am.

“My mate Evan was at the packing hangar a few hundred metres away and he didn’t realise it was me, but he just said to himself, ‘oh, that person’s dead’.”

Magee wasn’t, but he was agonal breathing - a brainstem reflex that kicks in when a person’s not getting enough oxygen, causing them to gasp for air.

It’s also a sign someone is near death.

The small group took turns giving CPR until St John Ambulance officers arrived at 10.56am, and the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter carrying flying doctor Kerry Holmes three minutes later, Magee says.

“I guess that’s when the critical care started.”

The chain of survival

Trauma Code Crimson.

It’s not a new designation of response, having been pioneered as a way to best help those with critical haemorrhaging in Auckland several years before Magee’s accident.

But the skydiver was one of the first cases where it “met with success”, Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust medical director Dr Chris Denny says.

“If you look at the list of injuries, it ranges from head to toe, and it’s almost easiest to look at what wasn’t injured. There’s head injuries, spinal injuries, injuries to the pelvis, to the long bones - it’s extraordinary how much force would’ve gone through his body.

“It’s an amazing story, not just of survival, but actually thriving.”

The code is designed to ensure a “chain of survival” response from accident scene to operating theatre, and beyond.

“The idea is the care begins at the moment something happens, and this is a real tribute to Jono and his friend[s] because he had immediate, really high-quality care by his colleagues who were at the jump site.

“At the same time, the other emergency services are being activated”, says Denny, who is also among the rotating prehospital and retrieval medicine doctors for the helicopter service.

That goes from St John Ambulance and rescue helicopter heading to an incident, to the eventual receiving hospital.

For the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter flying to the scene, this also includes always carrying whole blood through a 10-year collaboration with the New Zealand Blood Service, Denny says.

“The idea of using whole blood 10 years ago was a wild concept. It hadn’t been used probably since the Korean War, and there was a real idea that blood products should be fractionated [separating blood components such as plasma, red blood cells and platelets].”

First responders at the scene after Jono Magee's skydiving accident at Parakai, Auckland on September 26, 2020. Photo / Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust

But war medicine has shown when people suffered critical haemorrhage, blood transfusions need to replace what they’re losing, he says.

“And because we bleed whole blood, it stands to reason providing that as the replacement product in early phases is potentially life-saving.”

The collaboration, along with bringing other diagnostic and treatment tools to the patient, such as point of care ultrasound - allowing them to diagnose haemorrhages in the field - means they can provide “care in motion” to patients like Magee, who had what they call a ‘critical haemorrhage’ because he was bleeding from so many places, Denny says.

His first blood transfusion took place within minutes of the rescue helicopter landing in Parakai.

“There’s a dichotomy, which we think is false. People say, ‘you either stay and play, or you load and go’.

“But [our goal] is, ‘how can we provide what the patient needs rapidly while we’re headed in the direction of definitive care?‘”

Massive blood loss

The direction of definitive care on September 26, 2020 was Auckland City Hospital.

That’s where Denny was the consultant in charge of the emergency department, and his rescue helicopter deputy medical director, Dr Alana Harper, was leading the department’s resuscitation team when Magee arrived at noon.

Under the Code Crimson alert, senior surgeons and anesthetists had been brought to the emergency department, and staff who were able to prepare life-saving necessities such as the operating theatre and blood bank.

Magee was “in a bad way” with significant bleeding, collapsed lungs and multiple fractures, Harper says.

“The injury score he had, 20% to 25% of those people don’t survive. His main life threat was haemorrhagic shock. He was bleeding profusely … and that needed to be stopped.

“With our Code Crimson approach to haemorrhagic shock there’s expectations people will move quickly to theatre for surgery that stops the bleeding.”

By 1pm, Magee was in the operating theatre.

In the first 24 hours after the accident he received blood transfusions totalling around five litres - the equivalent of all the blood in his body.

“Then he had maybe about the same amount again as part of his ongoing recovery.”

Dr Alana Harper is a flying doctor with the Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter.

And while both the rescue helicopter trust and blood service share mutual admiration for each other’s efforts in making the whole blood partnership work over the past 10 years, it’s ordinary people who play the most vital part, the service’s transfusion medicine specialist Richard Charlewood says.

“All these life-saving initiatives rely on the man, the woman in the street who volunteers to donate blood, and we absolutely couldn’t do any of this without them.”

Thanks to blood donations and the way they’re being used through Code Crimson, Magee is one of an increasing number of Kiwis surviving haemorrhagic shock, says Harper, the rescue helicopter deputy medical director and emergency department doctor.

The code - or a similar chain of survival care - is being used in multiple New Zealand hospitals, including in Auckland, Waikato and Northland, and it’s making a difference, she says.

“In 2016 our deaths nationally from haemorrhagic shock was sitting about 15% of all trauma deaths. In 2023 that [had] dropped down to 3%.”

‘Grow up’

Magee might be among the survivors, but he faced a long, slow recovery.

His life hung in the balance for the first two weeks, he says.

“Especially the first week.”

Over the next couple of months he moved from ICU to HDU, then a general ward and finally to the Acquired Brain Injury facility in West Auckland.

“Obviously, my brain had been through quite a bit of trauma. I was hallucinating pretty badly in hospital and I remember calling [girlfriend, now fiancee] Sophie [van der Pol] about 3 o’clock in the morning and telling her not to worry, I’ll be back from Norway soon.

“That was one of my many overseas trips while I was in hospital. I visited Tonga, the United Kingdom. Yeah, it was quite a whirlwind period of travel.”

Jono Magee and fiancee Sophie van der Pol, pictured before the skydiving crash that nearly took his life.

Growth, however, came from real experiences at home, not imagined ones abroad.

After dislodging the colostomy bag he needed in hospital, Magee called van der Pol for help, even though she was a couple of hours drive away and it was night.

“She’s telling me to grow up and ring the bell but I didn’t have the humility to do that … [but] I’m not gonna lie on my own s**t for too long, so I did ring the bell. I was just so embarrassed about it, but obviously the nurses are so professional.”

The experience is among many that made him more compassionate, starting with realising it’s okay to ask for help, says Magee, who now works in a non-clinical health role at Middlemore Hospital.

It took three or four years to fully recover from his skydiving accident, Jono Magee says.

Recovery was tough, and long.

“It took three or four years. I sunk into depression at one stage and it was a lot of hard work to pull myself out of there.”

Friends, family and the Army made the difference, especially the latter in providing a place on base to recover, letting him have his dog with him and flying family to visit.

“There was no stress about losing my job. I only left the military because I couldn’t stay and meet my own standards of what it took to be in there.

“It’s easy to be resilient through this journey when all the support structures are in place to help you.”

He loved the sport, but his skydiving days are over, says Jono Magee, who nearly died in a 2020 skydiving crash.

Bar a minor impact to his left side mobility, Magee has fully recovered, but he has no plans to skydive again.

He wouldn’t inflict that stress on van der Pol, the 36-year-old says.

“To me, I was just kind of asleep for a few weeks and then woke up and dealt with whatever. But she had to come in for the first two weeks and [not be] sure if I was going to survive, what condition I was going to wake up in with the brain injury, [or] whether I was going to be in a wheelchair.

“I’ve done close to 1000 jumps … it’s time to move on and focus on the next thing, which for me is building a family with Sophie.”

The couple aren’t wasting time - late last month they found out they’re expecting twins in November.

“I don’t get very emotional about it, but I’m pretty chuffed on the inside. I’m about as happy as I’ve ever been.

“Life’s about to change again, but the future’s looking pretty bright.”

Jono Magee is talking about his survival after a devastating skydiving crash to support the life-saving whole blood partnership between Auckland Westpac Rescue Helicopter and the New Zealand Blood Service. Photo / Michael Craig

And while he could’ve kept the hard times and lessons learned from the past four years to himself, talking publicly was a chance to celebrate everyone who had helped, especially the health workers who first saved his life, and then helped him recover.

His actions will show his gratitude.

“The best thing I can do is take every opportunity, and be the best human I can be. I really hope that will let the medical professionals see the value in their work, because I know they sacrifice so much.

“This story is a way of saying thank you - ‘thank you for what you do, and it’s worth it’.”

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