Hang Glider 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
(September 2002, Detroit) A 22 year old man, identified as Richard W. Hughes, jumped to his death today from the 37th floor of the Fisher building. According to Detroit Police Lieutenant Tony Caldwell, Hughes, a mail clerk at Wayne Medical Imaging, built a ?para-glider? out of x-ray film, cardboard mailing tubes, mailing twine, envelopes and packing tape, tied it to himself and leapt out of the mail room office window which is located on the 37th floor of Detroit?s Fisher building. Needless to say, the para-glider collapsed and Hughes plunged 37 stories to his death.
?Apparently it worked for the first few seconds of flight, the window is on the East Grand Boulevard side of the building and he landed on Second Avenue?, said Caldwell. ?He would have had to made a 90 degree turn and travel almost 70 yards to land where he did.?
Fellow employees reported that Hughes has had an obsession with hang-gliding for about the last 18 months. ?That?s all he talked about at lunch and on breaks. His desk was filled with hang-gliding and parachute magazines?, reported David Jenks, another mail room clerk. ?We never thought he would do anything crazy like this, I mean as far as we knew, he wasn?t on drugs or anything.? When asked if he thought it strange that a mail clerk was building a hang-glider with a 20 foot wingspan in the mail-room, Jenks replied: ?Nah, that?s what makes the mail room a fun place to work, you know!?
Submitted on 09/07/2002
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Reference:
etro Times, Sept 6 2002
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