Not sure what the pilot was doing, how his gyro handles or anything, of course, but I noticed when flying an old-school VansCraft 503 for a friend at Bensen Days that the vertical mush out flight characteristics of the gyro when rolling out of a steep turn were pretty shocking, and with no power to recover I made sure he understood that he was NEVER to try to pull off a turn steeper than 20 degrees without at least 150 feet AGL under him at any time.
Steve here is no Newbie, but for any other freshman gyropilot the last thing they will do when descending (unintended) with the gyro flying "flat", no turn angle, is point the nose DOWN, but that is precisely the only maneuver that will recover the gyro losing altitude in this situation. Strange feeling to be in calm winds, flat disk (not turning anymore), and find yourself behind the power curve and descending after executing a turn having entering it at more than 50 mph IAS.
Is that a VW engine? IF so they are not very good power-to-weight ratio, so recovery may not have been an option had he gotten into trouble.
I find it hard to swallow that he pulled down the utility pole! Our family (me too) was into power and telecom construction. That thing must have not been set right in the first place, the butt end of the pole buried into the ground is supposed to be 15% of the length of the pole, so even a little 40-footer (which is what this one appears to be, maybe a 35) should have had 6 feet in the ground. No way you are going to pull that down with a little gyrocopter. There is a stamp on the pole so that the inspector can see how deep the thing is in the ground, but I have known idiot crewman to cut the butt off with a chainsaw so they can get away with setting them too shallow. My dad once found a 60 foot pole with just 2 feet in the ground that fell over in a storm when he was still into utility construction.
Best wishes for a speedy and full recovery to Steve.