An email written by the pilot:
I was going to fly my biggest flight in my ASW 27 today, aiming for 12 hours. I took off at Minden at 7:30 and went north to Stead and turned back for clouds and flew south to Mammoth and then went north almost to Susanville.
It was slow and as I was passing over Reno I went between 2 clouds which filled in suddenly. I should have had a neat attitude indicater like Gordo has and I tried to fly my Garmin but it was so rough that things went to hell in a hurry.
I was IFR at 14000' and I felt a stall and then the airspeed increased fast thru 160k and I heard 2 pops and the canopy broke.
I shortly came out the bottom of the clouds in a spin at maybe 9-10000' and tried to break the spin but it didn't work and I looked and saw the left wing wasn't there so I knew that wouldn't work.
I unlocked the emerg canopy release, open my harness and went over the side. I saw stuff flying thru the air (2 nanos,handheld radio, lunch etc) and couldn't find my ripcord and thought it was gone but looked lower and found it and pulled it and it wasn't a very long ride down and I saw the glider fuselage going down below me.
I thought I was going to land on the CIRCUS CIRCUS roof but missed it and then I landed on the St. Mary hospital roof but hoped my chute would snag the light pole. I hit the light and the chute snagged it and I ended up 10' in the air. A Reno cop pushed up on my feet so I could release my chute and down the pole.
HOW LUCKY I WAS.
I didn't go to the hospital but my son and daughter in law doctor told me I had to and they found a broken collar bone and my right lung was collapsed so they had that fixed in an hour by 2 doctors who are in our Air Guard hospital.
I lost my phone so no service.