Video captures moment hot air balloon crashes, injuring 3

WLS, DEBBIE WAJVODA, CNN

By WLS Digital Team, Leah Hope, and Eric Horng

Click here for updates on this story

    LOWELL, Indiana (WLS) — A hot air balloon crash in northwest Indiana left three people on board injured on Sunday evening.

Two of those injured were airlifted to Chicago hospitals, and crews later moved the deflated hot air balloon out of a Hebron, Indiana field.

Teri Campbell, a 53-year-old Shelby, Indiana woman, was onboard.

Her daughter, Morgan, is relieved that her mother is alive after all three people aboard the balloon suffered serious burns.

It began, Morgan said, as a routine training or practice flight. Her mother, as she’s done previously, volunteered to be a passenger for the operator, Region Ballooning.

Teri joined one other volunteer and a pilot. But witnesses say the Lindstrand 90A balloon lost altitude.

The balloon first got attention from motorists when it was low and hit a power line. Debbie Wajvoda took a video to try and see if there was anyone in the basket.

“It was starting for deflate and little bit, and it was coming down, and it hit the power lines and pitching, and then flew back up and just kept rising,” said Debbie Wajvoda. “My first instinct was to call 911, but I saw everybody on the side of the road already doing that, and I just started saying prayers on the way home, ‘If there was anybody in there, they are OK.'”

Lowell Volunteer Fire Department Chief Chris Gamblin says there was tremendous response from the public to chase the balloon that actually crossed Interstate 65.

“There was electrical arching and high degree of energy that was transmitted through the power lines the balloon came in contact with,” Gamblin said. “It was clear it was coming down from the time we saw it. From the elevation to where it landed, we knew he was coming down, and we were concerned about it getting on the interstate. The pilot was able to extinguish an onboard fire on the basket while maintaining control of the balloon, and landed in a field about 2 miles from where they struck the lines.”

ABC7 has been unable to reach the owner of the balloon company. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating why the hot air balloon was so low.

Gamblin said he is grateful for the public’s help, the response from local agencies to get the injured on their way to treatment and the pilot’s actions to avert what would have been a bigger tragedy, crashing onto a busy highway.

Meanwhile, Teri is conscious, talking and even walking, much to her family’s relief.

“She’s definitely surprised and… we all know it could’ve been so much worse,” Morgan said.

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