Basejumper.com - archive

 

I don't have any specifics. But, the injuries that I know of all happened to low time jumpers.

The problem appeared to be one of group dynamics, more than anything else.

On Saturday, almost everyone grounded themselves for wind. By sunday, with a huge number of jumpers in town, everyone was chomping at the bit. Despite the fact that conditions were just as bad by 10am Sunday as they had been Saturday morning, everyone pretty much decided to jump anyway. I still have the (five) voicemail and answering machine messages from various jumpers (at least two of them very experienced) urging me to come down to the bridge and jump (I had gone out around 7am and decided not to jump) on Sunday.

At any rate, it's my opinion that the injuries largely resulted from too much pent up "jump fever", which caused a very large number of people to jump in marginal-to-bad conditions.

On the other hand, I have the luxury of not needing to jump on any particular day, because when everybody has to go home at the end of the weekend, I'm still just a few minutes away. That makes it easy for me to wait for better conditions.

I guess I'm glad I couldn't make it there this Memorial Day. Four serious injuries does sound very, very high for such an easy jump. I do realize that we're always going to have things happen, but this is an object where most jumpers are experienced, there is a lot of calm water below that is very forgiving, and tons of experienced jumpers there to advise the low time jumpers that conditions are not favorable.

I would also be interested in hearing more about the injuries.

Tom,

I don't think the winds were wuite as bad on Sunday as they were on Saturday. They were marginal for sure, but I don't think Saturday was even remotely marginal. On Saturday, I climbed that rock formation right there in the park, and it was about blowing us over. In my opinion, which is worth nothing, Sunday was a much better day. I'm not saying it was a good day by any strecth, but it was better for sure.

Ganja

I wasn't trying to say that wind on Sunday was just as bad as Saturday. Saturday, on the whole was definitely worse. By comparison, that made Sunday look good, even though Sunday was also quite bad.

Many people jumped Sunday afternoon in conditions that on Saturday morning they had backed down in.

The wind that folks were backing off in at 7am Saturday was roughly the same wind that they cheerfully jumped in (and some got injured in) at 3pm Sunday. In fact it was roughly the same wind recorded at 9am and 11am Sunday.

Regardless, in my opinion, winds on Sunday were too high for most beginners to be jumping in. And we had a lot of beginners jumping on Sunday.

I now have a better understanding of what you meant.

I guess part of what made people more comfortable Sunday is that they started jumping and then the winds got worse. Either we were more comfortable with the winds due to being more current with them, or we just ignored the fact that they were getting worse.

I'm not sure where the data is measured at, but I'd assume that that data comes from the pole right at the bridge/visitors center? I wasn't wearing a watch, but there was one time Sunday afternoon that I walked out ther with gear on, and stood down. It was about the same time they put Russell off and into the water (which was awsome I might add). We walked down, and waited for a couple of hours for the winds to slow a bit...

Ganja

 

I was a bit worried about the example that might set. The thing is that Russel didn't have to worry about winds on landing, or turbulence over the trees, since he was intentionally landing in the water. Same goes for the (very small) number of folks who made intentional water jumps on Sunday afternoon.

I totally understand what you mean about setting an example. Personally, I viewed it as great entertainment since the rest of us couldn't jump. It was great that he was able to get to do that, and the down time was pefect for it. I never even touched the water, I assume it had to be pretty friggin cold?

Ganja

Here's a concept to think about next time your faced with conditions that your not comfortable with.
It is a couragous person that stands up and, in front of his peers, admit his fears.
It is a coward that swallows his fears and follows the group inspite of what he knows in his heart to be true.
The bridge is going no where. You can always come back. Then again, if you jump in unsafe conditions maybe you wont be able to.

KUA executive seriously injured in BASE jump

First off I would like to say that I do not wish to criticize any of the injured people here. I was under the impression that only 3 of the crashes resulted in hospital trips. But I witnessed at least 5 what I would refer to as nasty crashes and several other minor crashes on Sunday afternoon.

1) The first crash happened to a fellow known by some (I didn't know him, but some of my friends do). Anyway, he was jumping in these high winds and landed kind of going side ways and backwards and landed hard on his back and suffered the back injury. Hospital Trip #1.

2) While people were attending to this fellow, someone else jumped and flew near the GoFast wind blade on the west side of the large landing area. Things were looking not bad until flare time when I guess he flared too much and the canopy went behind him in the high winds and he too landed pretty hard on his back. The fellow stayed down on the ground for a while, but was able to walk off the field on his own.

3) Not long after this initial batch of carnage was cleared someone else jumped and for some reason downwinded it in the large landing area. Well of course the downwind is better than a low turn, but the fellow flew his canopy into the trees and bushes on the west side of the big landing area. He appeared to be shaken, but not all that hurt and I'm thinking that the trees saved his bacon as they must have absorded a lot of the forces.

4) After an hour or so, the winds started to calm down and now I was in gear on the bridge ready to jump when one of my student peers exited. The fellow was nervous (his 3rd BASE jump, 1st hand held exit) and he exited a tad head low which resulted in a 90 off heading opening towards the west. He turned parallel to the shore, but took too long to decide what he was going to do and instead of downwinding it into the safe water or the south beach, he decided to initiate a 180 degree turn at what appears to be <50 feet and was only able to complete 1/2 of the turn when he impacted the ground and broke his femur. I have the video of this accident, but have not done anything with it as I'm not to sure if this sort of accident is normally shown to the public (the public being you guys). Hospital Trip #2.

Oh Jimmy gave me the opportunity to jump soon after this accident and my response to him was "I think I'll kill myself on another day, thank you".

Anyway, just prior to the last injury, I witnessed 5 jumpers in a row have off-heading openings. 3 of these jumpers had slider up configurations but in all cases, the canopy appeared to come off of the person's back okay, but then rotated once it was exposed to the wind under the bridge. But of course I guess off heading openings could have for a number of reasons and maybe these 5 in a row off heading openings were just a fluke?

5) By now you would think that people would learn. But this final fellow shows up at the bridge again (he has actually been jumping all afternoon) and I wasn't aware that he was a low-timer (otherwise I might have tried to encourage him to stay on the bridge). Anyway this fellow appeared to be fearless (based on his comments made on his previous two jumps which I watched which were also made in high winds). This fellow seemed to have good canopy control on his previous two jumps and it looked like he almost pulled off a miracle on the jump he was injured on, but I guess the cards were stacked against him. Anyway, this fellow exits and immediately upon opening we watch his control lines break and start fluttering in the wind. I don't know exactly what broke (or were the brakes just not set), but whatever happened, it happened on opening. So this fellow starts steering his canopy with his rears at the large landing area and he almost got it turned around into the wind when he lost altitude and slammed hard to the ground in a slight cross-wind way breaking his ankle. Hospital Trip #3.

I am a total BASE newbie, so maybe what I'm about to say is wrong as well (and if so, please correct me as I need to learn). But to me when the winds are howling, I don't jump (that's pretty obvious). But when the winds are marginal, shouldn't the jumpers open a tad higher than they normally would in order to give them a little more time to setup?

Finally, while I'm sorry that these people got hurt. But it served as a great wake up call to me that this is some serious shit that we like to do and people will be killed or hurt if/when they make bad decisions. At least two of these incidents could have been avoided (the femur and the ankle) if the people had gone for the water. Hopefully if I find myself low to the ground with some sort of mal (like broken brake lines) or a poor setup, I will go for the water. But this is an intense environment (especially in wind) and if the Perrine is an easy object, I can only imagine the seriousness of the planned dive on more difficult object.

Oh Jimmy gave me the opportunity to jump soon after this accident and my response to him was "I think I'll kill myself on another day, thank you".

Um...wait a minute. Why were you given the opourtunity to jump? What is the acceptable limit for a student? If many other more experienced jumpers had already called it, then why was a student given the choice?

I'm not sure what wind limits students have (<15 mph?), but the conditions changed pretty fast from the time the injured student jumped and the time I was given the opportunity to jump. Plus I guess Jimmy gave me the opportunity to jump because I had shown good canopy control on my previous jumps. But I'm flying a big boat which I really like (Karen if you're out there and reading this) and felt that the boat could be an issue in the winds the way they were. So I stayed on the bridge. Plus I only have 7 jumps on this boat and am only just starting to scratch the surface in getting to know how the canopy flies and how to control it. Jumping in high winds in a sport new to myself with a big canopy I hardly know doesn't seem like such a good idea. There's just too many unknown variables here.

Not to say that they didn't play a part in the accident, but I think pilot error was more a factor than the winds on this femur accident.

Popular wisdom appears to be this:

The majority of BASE jumping injuries happen while under canopy, so maximizing delay and minimizing time under canopy actually reduces the chances for injury.

If you don't know the words...

just hummit

That's pretty much what it looked like to me. I saw one of the injuries for sure, stretcher is on its way, then someone else gets sick of waiting on the bridge, jumps turns into the wind and starts flying backwards they pounded in hard too. a couple people helping the other guy go running over to help him.You hear Don over the radio- "Maby people should stop jumping right now, they're dropping like flys" I think someone went in right before those two also.
I walked off the bridge 3 times last week, the winds would be mellow so I'd gear up and walk out ,when I'd get there they'd pick up It was a little frustrating, but not worth breaking over.
~J

Conditions didn't change that fast. I had already called it for my students and after an hour of watching jumpers land in what I thought were bad conditions we left. It was after my students and I left that the first jumper got hurt.

I was happy to see you walk off the bridge Jamie. Several times I saw you there with your gear on and in my head I was thinking this is a bad idea. But then common sense prevailed in your decision making process.

That depends on if you mean the wind conditions or the condition of people's heads. The latter is almost always more important.

I might as well give you my take on it too.

I'm the one that did the perfectly executed back flop.

Like Steve said, the jump was going fine, but excuses aside, I stalled it, and it dumped me.

Consider, though, the difference between making that jump look easy, and doing what I did was very small. If I had turned to final, left it in full flight and landed, it would have been no problem. But it was an accuracy competition, and I had actually done exactly as I had planned, get on final a bit up wind, and back it onto the target. So, the plan I made on the bridge was going well. The problem was, it was a BAD plan. Trying to sink it in, with resulting backing up, in that wind was a bad idea.

Then, the next guy would have jumped, basically until someone else got hurt. The winds where too much.

The bright side of mine, is after they saw my "landing" everyone walked off the bridge. I'm sure those other two guys later that day wish they had stayed off the bridge.

If you want a lesson from the carnage, consider this. That was my second BASE jump, the problem wasn't exit, deployment, fear or any of those things. It was canopy control. The very same with the serious injuries, it wasn't anything the FJC's could really teach, completely, you need experience. They all got hurt because of makeing bad decisions under a good (enough) parachute.

And so you know, I have about a thousand skidives, a new tandem instructor, done a lot of demos, can kick butt under a small parachute, etc.

All that matters, but, in my opinion, doesn't matter as much as a lot of experience and practice on BASE specific landings, accuracy, maybe CRW, stuff like that. So, whether you are new to skydiveing or not, and really want to get into BASE, get some experience flying your canopy the way you will have too in that enviornment. At the DZ I you seldom see people jumping in winds half as bad as most people where jumping off that bridge.

It's all good, and my chiropractor appreciated seeing me again...

I do belive your right...

Public attention like this is NOT good

My impression on this is that experienced jumpers jumped it due the experience they had.Sadly some newbies jupmed aswell and as they saw people keep jumping so did they(call this a auto-pilot or so???),some were lucky some werent..

Jason you got my mail back?will need info soon as posible to get off work

 
My first base jumps were there this weeked (6). The main challenge was deciding to jump in the winds or not.
We did the right thing and waited many times. Came home with just a few harness bruises and a big smile.

What a great place for the intro to base. I'll be back for more training there since it seems like the safest place to bridge/base jump. Not ready for other objects yet, but my dreams of jumping in Norway are one step closer.

While I have not, and may never end up BASE jumping, I've gone more than my share of ground/getaway crew missions, and have some very good friends who have been doing it for some time......


Form that I have assumed this:

The word "BOOGIE" and "BASE JUMP" are not and should never be used together in convesation. Just doesn't ring right.

The TF event seems as if it started as a simple gathering, all in good fun. Now it's mutated into something ugly.


I should leave now.....

Why were you taking part in an accuracy competition on your second BASE jump (in shitty conditions)?

Maybe this article should be recommended reading for FJCs :

Risk assessment in BASE by Ken Miller

General word to all (just responding to skreamer as the last poster).

Let's not let this devolve into a "you guys were dumb for jumping" finger pointing match.

Some people decided to jump. Some people didn't. Many people learned things. By keeping this discussion positive, maybe some more people can learn things.

Thanks!

<steps out of BASE corner>

I agree. BASE is a very personal/ interpersonal decision. Many people have higher/lower, basically different levels of tollerance, views, and exceptance of risk/ percieved risk.

</steps back into BASE corner>

Ok, it's official, I hate you

Like Tom said "It's all about Learning"
First I would like to say that I have busted my ass
more time than I can remember from mistakes
under Canopy.
* But *
The wind was Not the KEY Factor that people
got hurt on Sunday.
The winds were not that radical or wild.
*People Dropped break lines.
*Blew break lines.
*Down wind landing
*Hooked it around got dumped.
Most I think did not understand how to make
a flat 180 deg. turn and land into the wind while
getting a good fast tail push.
Extra fast tail wind can make your canopy respond
Shitty if you don't get much practice or don't have
the experience to handle it.
If you were flying down wind you were hauling ass.
**Set up for landing was important**
Hooking it around to land combined with a bad flair.
Or Just Wasting to much TIME F###ing around after
you Have a problem with a real fast tail wind.
* Bad Move *
I sat out on Saturday and drank Beer. It's just takes
a lot of fun out of it when the wind was that fast.
The stiff wind was just that little extra that would
bite you in the ass if you screwed up.
I saw a bunch of people standing down on Saturday
and Sunday.
They played there own game plan and walked
away to jump another day.
* Smart Move *

I'm the dumb@ss who broke his fibula Sunday evening. As soon as I opened and looked up to see my brakelines fluttering in the wind, I knew what I did wrong... stopped in the middle of my last pack job and forgot to stow my brakes.

But even more than that, the underlying mistake I made was trying to do an 850-mile motorcycle ride (on a sportbike for God's sake!) then immediately bang out a few jumps.

Even though I just celebrated my 46th year on this planet, I thought I could still push myself that far. Heck, I used to be able to do that kind of hard-@ss stuff! But no, I learned the hard way that I get fatigued sooner than when I was but a young pup.

For me, the winds were a little high, but still inside my comfort range. While I was on the bridge, a still, small voice tried to tell me not to jump. Too bad I didn't listen.

Lemming syndrome? Nope. I've walked off/down obects a dozen times before when the voice called to me. But this time, I was too exhausted to listen.

Fatigue inhibited my judgment when I thought I saw I was too far from the river for a water landing. Video review at the ER showed I could have easily made the river.

Moral of the story for me... go easier, don't try to push through fatigue, cuz that's when my judgment goes out the window.

I'll find out tomorrow when I can jump again, but the ER doc told me to expect another 3 weeks in the cast. Fortunately, I'm in pretty good shape, so my leg muscles won't deteriorate too fast. Plus, I have some killer video of the landing!

Check with Jimmy if you want to see the finished product. I just learned I'll soon head to the big sandbox and probably won't be able to show it to my fellow jumpers for 565 days.

The fun part was trying to ride the Kawasaki back home. I made it safely, with my right leg strapped to the side of the bike.

The fun part was trying to ride the Kawasaki back home. I made it safely, with my right leg strapped to the side of the bike.
....................................

You rode that old Kawi. Z-X 10 with a
broken leg, 800+ miles back to
NewMexico ? *WOW *
That has to be the Hard Core award of the week.
I hope you had some good Persciption Medication.
That thing must have been Throbbing and
ready to fall off.

I'll second that. Talk about a new definition of "Cowboy Up!"

Heck, the ride wasn't that bad. I had perfect weather and the best scenery I could imagine. A little Tylenol can go a long way to ease the aching bones.

Hey, I owe a big debt of gratitude to the fine folks who caried my busted carcass out of there and drove me to the ER. Anyone involved, please e-mail me (BASE841@hotmail) so I can send you a copy of the finished video product.

And saying "thank-you" is inadequate for Bobby, the retired TF native who considers herself our surrogate mom. Boy, she went above and beyond the call with me. She escorted me to the ER, took me in to her own home, and made sure I stuck to the doctor's orders... kept me on my back with my leg iced and elevated for 4 days, housed me, fed me, and was the most gracious host I could imagine! If you stop by the visitor's center on a Sunday when she works there, you can meet her and shake the hand of an angel.

Im interested to know where this wind report comes from. Perhaps it comes from the airport which is what, about 8-10 miles away.

Some of the wind figures on the report are not reflective of what the winds were at the visitor center, the bridge, and in the canyon. Tom you called me at 6:22am on Sunday morning and said you had just returned from the bridge. We were there at 7:20 am and the wind was very calm. Right away I called down to Don who was in his boat by the landing area and he said the wind was 1-2 mph. The wind on the top was about 3-5 mph. We did the first jump right away and the wind was basically calm. This was definitely the sweet window for jumping. Conditions were prime. We did two rounds before the winds started really picking up and that was around 9:30-10:00 am.

There were some jumpers there that early but not a whole lot. A lot of jumpers seemed to show up right when the wind started picking up.

For those who may be unfamiliar with the weather trends there, here is what I have noticed. I have been jumping that bridge since the mid-90s and on many occasion when a day is windy, the sunset usually gets real nice and the early mornings are often decent. Also you will probably notice that the weather can change drastically multiple times in a single day there.

Hopefully we will have better weather Labor Day and next Memorial Day.
Thanks for all the fun jumps. Great visuals on some jumps as well.

Hard as nails.

Nice work fella

Just goes to show that the huervos grandes that got you into trouble yesterday can be put to excellent use today.

Outstanding! Hard as nails, dude.

We talked about this a bit after that little spate of injuries.

I think it was jump fever combined with a bit of "lemmings effect". More experienced jumpers could go off and land without major problems (or less experienced jumpers could just get lucky) and other folks see them and think "Hey, they're landing OK, so it must be fine."

I personally chose to stand down Saturday and most of Sunday. Yeah I might have missed a window or two, but I had just as much fun hanging out, talking BASE, sharing videos and working on the platform for Russell.

It's all good.