Since she was a young girl growing up in Texas, Makenzie Wethington had dreamed of one day jumping out of an airplane. 
 
 But the day her dream came true in Oklahoma turned into a nightmare. Her parachute malfunctioned, sending her spinning uncontrollably toward the ground. 
 
 Wethington, 16 at the time, miraculously survived the 3,500-foot fall on Jan. 25, 2014, in Chickasha. 
 
 Now, an Oklahoma City federal judge has awarded Wethington $760,000 in damages. The owner of a closed skydiving business was ordered to pay the judgment. 
 
 U.S. District Judge Timothy D. DeGiusti on Wednesday awarded $400,000 for Wethington's past and future physical pain and suffering and $350,000 for her mental pain and suffering. The judge also awarded $10,000 for future medical expenses. 
 
 A negligence lawsuit, filed by Wethington's mother, accused the owner of Pegasus Air Sports, Robert Swainson, of failing to properly train Wethington for the jump. The lawsuit also alleged her parachute was “inappropriate” for her skill level, as well as "30 years old" and in poor condition. 
 
 Swainson, 70, closed the Chickasha-based skydiving business in December 2014 and has since moved overseas. He contended the lawsuit had no merit and Wethington “injured herself.” 
 
 “I have been convinced that the reason for her accident was that she did not follow all of the instruction that she received by myself prior to the jump,” Swainson wrote in a court document in 2015. “I believe that she panicked when things did not go exactly as expected and did nothing to correct it.” 
 
 The judge, though, accepted Wethington's allegations that her training was "inadequate and the parachute assigned to her was too small and fast for a person of her young age and relative experience." 
 
 “It's like giving a 16-year-old a Porsche,” Wethington's attorney, Robert Haslam, said last month. 
 
 Haslam said he'll attempt to collect the judgment by filing another legal action in London. 
 
 History of injuries 
 
 During a deposition in November 2014, Swainson said he'd been a skydiving instructor for more than three decades. He testified in that time, a “couple dozen” of his jumpers had been injured. He said all of those injured jumpers, a majority being first-time sky divers, also didn't follow his instructions. 
 
 Pegasus Air Sports closed after 20 years in business. The “closure was planned, as I am at retirement age,” Swainson wrote in an email last month. He said he now lives in the United Kingdom. 
 
 At a hearing last month, Swainson failed to appear in court. Wethington, now 19, of Joshua, Texas, testified during the March 24 hearing. 
 
 Wethington told the judge about traveling with her father from Texas to Oklahoma, one of the few places at the time where a minor could sky-dive. After Wethington's near-fatal incident, the U.S. Parachuting Association raised the minimum age to 18, changing a rule that allowed 16- and 17-year-olds to jump with parental consent. 
 
 Wethington signed a waiver before she jumped but she alleged Swainson “breached this contract” by failing to properly train and equip her for the jump. 
 
 Injured 'head to toe' 
 
 When Wethington jumped from the plane, a “static line” opened her parachute automatically. She said she looked up and the lines were twisted, “a complete mess.” 
 
 She said she started kicking her feet like she was instructed but she kept spinning and eventually blacked out. She testified her training didn't cover pulling the reserve chute. 
 
 She said the next thing she remembered was waking up in a hospital, injured from “head to toe.” She suffered multiple bone fractures to her back, ribs, scapula, clavicle and pelvis, and had brain bleeding and internal organ injuries. 
 
 “It was the worst thing I've ever felt in my entire life,” she testified. 
 
 She said the pain was excruciating for about five weeks. But three months after the crash, she was able to walk without assistance. 
 
 She said she now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, nightmares, headaches and short-term memory loss. She is pursuing a medical degree to become a trauma surgeon, like the ones who saved her life. 
 
 The straight-A student said her biggest worry is getting through medical school now that it's harder for her to study and remember things. She said she's already completed one semester at Sam Houston State University on the dean's list. 
 
 Since the crash, Wethington also has had continued kidney infections about every three months, forcing her to be hospitalized repeatedly. She said there is no indication the infections will cease. 
 
 “This crash and all of the injuries and my ongoing recovery will forever affect the rest of life,” Wethington wrote in a court document. 
 
 Line twists 'not unusual' 
 
 In an email sent last month, Swainson said his equipment was in good condition, citing an investigation done by the Federal Aviation Administration. In great detail, he described the various training and drills Wethington went through before jumping, and again said she “failed to take corrective action as trained by me.” 
 
 “The other four students on the course who jumped, including her father, all had successful jumps,” Swainson wrote in a court document. “That would not have been possible with substandard training and equipment.” 
 
 Swainson also said he told the jumpers that day that line twists are “not unusual.” 
 
 “Canopies can malfunction for absolutely no reason,” he said in the email. 
 
 Another jumper that day claimed he also had issues with his parachute. During a 2015 deposition, Jeremy Morrow testified about his chute being “tangled for a little bit” after jumping out of the plane. 
 
 “I used the things that (Swainson) told us to do and it didn't work, so I started spinning around, kicking my feet and it untangled,” Morrow said. “I feel like I got lucky after what happened.” 
 
 Related to this story Show more 0 ||||| A 16-year-old is on the mend after falling 3,500 feet during a skydiving accident. 
 
 That first time jumper was 16 year old Mackenzie Wethington. 
 
 "Nobody survives that," said Holly Wethington, Makenzie's mother. 
 
 But Mackenzie is surviving. She’s in ICU right now, in and out of sleep, each time she's awake, remembering bits and pieces of her horrifying experience. But her father Joe Wethington remembers much more. 
 
 He says only half of the parachute opened as Mackenzie spiraled to the ground, 
 
 "The guy with the radio on the ground is trying to talk her out of what's going on and telling her what to do and she can’t do it," 
 
 "She's going too fast and in different directions she can’t reach up and grab it anyway and then when she goes into the spiral he keeps telling her to cut away to release the shoot and to pull the reserve." 
 
 But the owner of Pegasus Air Sports Center in Chickasha, Bob Swainson says the parachute opened completely. 
 
 "The jumper left the airplane. The parachute appeared to open ok. Soon after the opening the parachute started to rotate. There are a number of technical reasons why that could have happened possibly caused by the jumper herself. The jumper didn't sought out the rotation in accordance with the training she received earlier and contented to rotate to the ground and hurt herself," 
 
 Mackenzie hit the ground, a 3,500 feet fall. 
 
 "She would scream and arch her back and ask me to rub her back," Joe Wethington told NBC. 
 
 Paramedics soon arrived and Mackenzie was airlifted to OU medical center. 
 
 "It was like somebody has sit on my chest really an elephant and it did not come off until I got here....not knowing if she was going to be ok or not," Holly Wethington explained. 
 
 And doctors are telling the Wethingtons Mackenzie is going to survive. 
 
 "She's a miracle child, that she's doing well and she's going to be alright," Joe Wethington said.
– An absolutely amazing story out of Oklahoma, where a Texas 16-year-old survived a 3,500-foot fall in a skydiving mishap—and didn't even require any surgery for her injuries. Mackenzie Wethington, who went skydiving Saturday as a birthday present from her parents, slammed into the ground, yet somehow only suffered a lacerated liver and kidney, broken bones, and a broken tooth; she's already communicating with her parents in writing and doctors say she's in good condition and should suffer few long-term effects. "I have no idea how she survived," one tells Today. Experts are calling it a miracle; one suspects the teen somehow decreased her air speed and thus landed somewhat more softly—in other words, she was incredibly lucky. The teen was supposed to do a tandem jump with an experienced skydiver, but was told when she arrived that Pegasus Air Sports Center wasn't doing tandem jumps, so her first jump after six hours of training was on her own—and went horribly awry. It's not clear exactly what happened: According to MyFox DFW, the family says Mackenzie's primary parachute didn't open properly (it was supposed to open automatically) and may have gotten tangled, and Mackenzie couldn't open the emergency chute. Mackenzie's dad (who says the main chute only half-opened, according to CNN) blames Pegasus Air Sports Center, claiming it offered inadequate training and didn't properly maintain its equipment. The owner of Pegasus, however, blames Mackenzie and denies any problem with her equipment: "She didn't do what she was supposed to do," he says, though it's not clear what she did wrong; the owner says she didn't take a "corrective counter action" to make her parachute "stop turning." He claims the chute did open fully but somehow, "maybe ... initiated by her," started a rotation that caused the problem. The family has hired a lawyer, Fox News Insider reports.