Maybe you could have a small parachute deploy from the device to slow down its decent, giving her time to get to her ship? I'm under the impression that one of the prizes for the Animation category of the 2005 Renderosity Holiday contest is XX hours on a renderfarm. At least that's what it looks like. Maybe you should enter... [grin]

Before they made me they broke the mold!
http://home.roadrunner.com/~kflach/