{"id":146125,"date":"2025-11-13T23:03:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T04:03:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=146125"},"modified":"2025-11-13T23:03:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T04:03:46","slug":"st-lukes-physician-pursues-skydiving-world-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/?p=146125","title":{"rendered":"St. Luke’s Physician Pursues Skydiving World Record"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo caption: The global canopy formation record of 100 skydivers set in 2007.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When he isn\u2019t taking care of patients at St. Luke\u2019s Walbert Avenue Primary Care in Allentown, Dr. Frank Matrone enjoys jumping out of airplanes.<\/p>\n

Next week he hopes to secure a new spot in the skydiving record books.<\/p>\n

Dr. Matrone and his son, Dominic, will fly to Lake Wales, Fla., on Friday to begin final preparations for a global canopy formation skydiving world-record attempt next week. Skydivers from 19 countries will team with the Matrones to try to complete a parachute formation of 107-plus skydivers.<\/p>\n

Dr. Matrone is part of the current global canopy formation record of 100 skydivers. That record was set in 2007, when Dominic was 9 years old.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dr. Matrone is one of 25 people from the 2007 team returning to try to establish a new mark. For someone who started skydiving as a 17-year-old in the late 1970s in Hazleton, this could be his last chance to participate in a record leap.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as we leave the airplane, we open our parachutes,\u201d Dr. Matrone said of how canopy formation skydiving works. \u201cWe fly our parachutes together to make formations. So, it\u2019s a different aspect of the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of my freefall friends won\u2019t get close to it. They don\u2019t like to get close to another canopy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born and raised in Hazelton, PA, Dr. Matrone has been a family physician at St. Luke\u2019s since 2010. He credits skydiving with teaching him how to stay calm under pressure, communicate clearly and solve problems\u2014skills he brings to every patient interaction.<\/p>\n

Dr. Matrone said the group assembling in Florida would spend a few days practicing before starting to try for the record starting Tuesday, Nov. 18. Team members have trained together across the world over the last few years to prepare for next week\u2019s attempt.<\/p>\n

Dr. Matrone gave the group a 50-50 chance of breaking the record because of how many pieces need to fall into place. Good weather is a must. They also need every plane and jumper to perform as expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you launch eight airplanes and one of them has a problem, they all have to come down,\u201d Dr. Matrone said. \u201cThen every pilot of those airplanes has to be on their game and be in the right spot. And then every jumper has to have a good jump on the same jump.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, there\u2019s a lot that goes into it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information on the record attempt, visit\u00a0https:\/\/www.crwworldrecord.org\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

About St. Luke\u2019s<\/strong><\/p>\n

Founded in 1872, St. Luke\u2019s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network with annual net revenue of more than $4.5 billion. With 23,000+ employees at 16 hospital campuses and 350+ outpatient sites, it is the Lehigh Valley\u2019s biggest employer.<\/p>\n

The Network\u2019s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke\u2019s hospitals operate the largest network of trauma centers in Pennsylvania, with the Bethlehem Campus being home to St. Luke\u2019s Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n

Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke\u2019s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley\u2019s first and only four-year medical school. It also operates the nation\u2019s oldest School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 50+ fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with 500+ residents and fellows.<\/p>\n

St. Luke\u2019s has been named a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World\u2019s Best Hospital. It is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare\u2019s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency and patient satisfaction. In 2025, the Network earned straight A\u2019s from Leapfrog across all of its 11 acute care hospitals. It has earned 100 Top Hospital designations from Premier 11 years in a row, including in 2021 when its flagship University Hospital was identified as THE #1 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN\u2019s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Information provided to TVL by:
\nSam Kennedy<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo caption: The global canopy formation record of 100 skydivers set in 2007. When he isn\u2019t taking care of patients at St. Luke\u2019s Walbert Avenue Primary Care in Allentown, Dr. … Continue reading St. Luke’s Physician Pursues Skydiving World Record<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146126,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[69,482],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-the-valley","category-press-release-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/record-jump.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/146126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thevalleyledger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}