Posted on: Saturday, January 4, 2003

Funeral for skydiving victim held in Nebraska

Advertiser Staff and Associated Press

A funeral service was held yesterday in Nebraska for an 18-year-old woman who died on O'ahu along with her skydiving instructor when their parachutes failed to deploy properly during a tandem jump last month.

Maggie Thomas and Drop Zone instructor Greg Hunter, 44, died Dec. 22 when they fell 9,000 feet into the back yard of a home on O'ahu's North Shore.

Thomas and her 18-month-old son, Kaden Mumford, were in Hawai'i visiting Thomas' brother. Her family had given her the skydiving trip as a gift.

Thomas' service was held yesterday at Trinity Lutheran Church in her hometown of Papillion, near Omaha, Neb.

"It was very well attended," said Brian Kruse of the Heafey-Heafey-Hoffmann-Dworak-Cutler Funeral Home. "It was a nice tribute to Maggie."

Thomas was a unit secretary at Bergan Mercy Medical Center and a full-time nursing student at the College of St. Mary in Omaha.

She is survived by her son; mother, Marilyn Thomas of Blair; father, Doug Thomas Sr. of Corpus Christi, Texas; and six brothers and sisters.

On Sunday, dozens of people gathered at O'ahu's Dillingham Airfield to honor Hunter. Two planes took off and divers formed a human lei thousands of feet above the ground as flowers and Hunter's ashes were scattered.

Officials said Hunter's parachute opened prematurely and a backup became tangled during the fatal jump.

Drop Zone, in operation since 1997, has since resumed business. Findings of a Federal Aviation Administration investigation have not yet been released.

Staff writer Karen Blakeman contributed to this report.