At first he tensed up, but a split-second decision as he fell probably saved his life.
"I suddenly thought 'what are you doing' and remembered what I'd learnt in skydiving and just relaxed."
Doctors say that lessened the impact of his body hitting the ground and contributed to his amazing survival. Six weeks after his horrific accident at Whangapoua, the 25-year-old father of two young boys is recovering at home.
It was the thought of his children that helped him survive and the fact that he is young and fit, he says.
It was a routine operation on the morning of August 27 when the accident happened. Mr Parr was doing something he'd done hundreds of times before in his eight years in the industry -- standing on a slope, guiding the wire from the hauler towards a log.
The only thing that wasn't routine was that he working alone. Normally he would have had another worker with him but the gang was short-handed.
He was holding onto the strop and guiding the hauler towards the log, when suddenly a tiny metal sprag from the wire caught his glove and he was lifted off the ground.
As he dangled over the stick-strewn slope, he realised the hauler couldn't see or hear him. The hauler, thinking he was lifting a log, then lifted him higher. Mr Parr came into his view and says the man freaked out, revving the machine and lifting him higher still for a couple for seconds before slamming the brakes on. The movement jerked Phillip's hands off the wire.
He fell feet first, hitting the ground and breaking both ankles. Then he catapulted forward onto his chest before bouncing up in the air again for three metres and torpedoing into the end of a log. He fractured his skull and smashed his cheek and eye socket. As his legs flicked over his head, he cracked his spine.
It all took less than 10 seconds but it felt like 20 minutes, he says. "All that was going through my mid was how am I going to get out of this. And I thought about my kids."
He lost consciousness for only about three seconds. When he came to, he realised his eye was hanging out and he used two fingers to push it back in.
A co-worker reached him and says he was trying to get up. Mr Parr could feel his legs swelling up in his boots. There was blood on his face and round his ear and the pain was kicking in.
Flown by the Westpac Rescue Helicopter to Auckland Hospital, he spent a week in a neck brace, waiting for the swelling to go down before his shattered right ankle was operated on. The cleaner break in his left ankle and the fracture in his back were left to heal themselves.
A week later he transferred to Middlemore Hospital for an operation on his face. Surgeons inserted a rod down the side of his face, hitching his cheek back up and stitching everything back into place.
Mr Parr was reunited with his partner Vickee, two-year-old Phoenix and two-month-old Chevy in Whitianga about four weeks ago, but a few days later Chevy, who was born seven weeks premature, was flown to Waikato Hospital with breathing problems.
The family is together again now and Mr Parr is slowly recovering. He's keen to get back to his forestry work and says his employer, Havard Logging, has been supportive and encouraging.
