A cruel husband shoved his wife out of a helicopter for a hefty insurance payout — and her response left everyone utterly shocked

Abusive Husband Pushed His Wife From a Helicopter for Insurance Money — She Survived and Make …

The wind screamed past Sophia’s ears as she plummeted toward the earth, her husband’s face growing smaller in the helicopter door above her. The last thing she saw was Richard’s cold smile not the loving expression of a man who had just lost his wife in a tragic accident, but the calculated look of someone who had just committed murder. Three seconds earlier she had been leaning out of the helicopter, marveling at the beautiful landscape below.

Richard had suggested this romantic helicopter ride for their fifth wedding anniversary, and she had been so touched by the gesture. He rarely did anything romantic anymore, always buried in his work at the insurance company where he was a senior claims adjuster. »Look down there honey,» he had said, his voice barely audible over the helicopter’s rotor blades.

»See how small everything looks from up here?» She had smiled and leaned forward, pressing her face against the cool glass. That’s when she felt his hands on her back not gentle, not loving but firm and deliberate. The safety harness that should have been securing her had been loosened, she realized too late.

The door that should have been locked was suddenly open. Richard what are you? But the words were lost in the wind as his hands pushed hard against her shoulders, sending her tumbling into the vast emptiness below. For a moment she couldn’t process what was happening.

This had to be an accident. Her husband of five years wouldn’t couldn’t do this to her. As she fell, fragments of the past few months flashed through her mind.

Richard’s sudden interest in life insurance policies. His insistence that they both increase their coverage for protection. The way he had been working late more often, the smell of perfume that wasn’t hers lingering on his clothes.

The credit card bills showing expensive dinners at restaurants they had never been to together. The ground rushed up to meet her and Sophia closed her eyes, preparing for the end. She thought about her childhood, growing up in Atlanta with her grandmother who had raised her after her parents died.

She thought about her job as a nurse, all the patients she had helped, all the lives she had touched. She thought about the business degree she had earned through night school, the dream she had put on hold when she married Richard. But instead of the hard ground she felt the sharp branches of a massive oak tree breaking her fall.

Pain shot through her body as she crashed through the canopy, each branch slowing her descent. Her left arm snapped with a sickening crack, and she felt her ribs break as she hit a thick branch. Blood ran down her face from cuts made by the smaller branches, but she was alive.

She landed hard in a pile of leaves at the base of the tree, every bone in her body screaming in pain. Above her she could hear the helicopter circling, probably making sure she was dead. She forced herself to remain still, to play dead, even though every instinct told her to scream for help.

The helicopter circled three more times before flying away. Only then did Sophia allow herself to move, to take inventory of her injuries. Her left arm was definitely broken, she had several broken ribs and she was bleeding from dozens of cuts.

But she was alive and more importantly she was angry. She managed to crawl to the edge of the small clearing where she had landed. In the distance she could see a farmhouse with smoke coming from the chimney…