Statesville man hurt in hot air balloon landing

A Statesville man was taken to the hospital with a serious ankle injury after the hot air balloon in which he was riding made a hard landing in eastern Iredell County, the (Statesville) Record & Landmark reported.

Dave Litton, a balloon pilot-in-training, was treated at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem after the landing in a field near Cool Springs on Friday.

The balloon’s pilot, Charles Page, was uninjured during the landing. Page, a pilot with Big Oh! Balloons in Cool Springs, told the newspaper he was giving Litton his eighth piloting lesson. Litton’s foot was in a poor position when the balloon landed, Page said.

“It was a routine landing,” Page said. “There was no damage to the balloon, nobody thrown out.”

“In my 36 years of flying, this is the first time an injury of any kind has happened,” Page told the Record & Landmark.

This story was originally published February 25, 2017 at 1:43 PM with the headline "Statesville man hurt in hot air balloon landing."