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CSULB
graduate student dies in skydiving accident
By
Leslie Nickus
Online Forty-Niner
Assistant City Editor
Sarah
Michelle Spray, 33, died March 5 in a skydiving
accident. To celebrate her decision to pursue
a master's degree, she went skydiving with
some friends.
"She
was diving with the same people she had
gone with before but they were using new
equipment," said Duane Wehus, Spray's
brother.
The
technology the skydivers were using on this
particular jump was newly developed. According
to Wehus, her friends saw her struggling
but were unable to help her. An investigation
into the reasons her reserve parachute did
not deploy is still underway.
Wehus
suspects the chip that detects the altitude
at which the reserve parachute may have
malfunctioned and didn't deploy the reserve
parachute when Spray's main parachute failed
to open.
Spray
was born on April 11, 1971 in Whittier.
She graduated from Oceanview High School
in 1989 then attended Orange Coast College
until 2000. From there, she came to Cal
State Long Beach to pursue a bachelor's
degree in English and creative writing;
she also wrote articles for the Online Forty-Niner.
After graduating in 2003, she continued
at CSULB for her master's degree.
"She
was a quiet, strong woman with a lot of
inner strength. As a child she was very
quiet," said Peggy Megiola, Spray's
aunt. "She had a passion for writing."
In
addition to her passion for writing, Megiola
explained, was a strong passion for skydiving.
She was a seasoned skydiver, with more than
50 dives in her past. She enjoyed most outdoor
sports and hobbies such as camping, hiking
and off-roading with Wehus.
"She
eventually came off-roading with me and
she liked it. We went off-roading together
a lot," Wehus said.
Her
service was held at the Megiola home Saturday.
Family and friends were in attendance.
"I
learned a lot about her that I didn't know
from some of her co-workers. When we were
debating her favorite fruit, we couldn't
remember if it was apples or oranges, one
of her co-workers jumped in and said she
could remember Michelle having an orange
every day at 10," said Wehus.
In
honor of his sister, Wehus plans to plant
an orange tree in the yard of his Murrieta
home that Spray visited often.
"It's
gonna be pretty tough not being able to
talk to her," Wehus said.
The
skydivers that accompanied her on her last
dive plan to jump in honor of Spray on her
birthday this year.
"It's
a blessing that we knew her for the time
that we did," said Megiola.
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