Johnny Utah on Tom Aiello
In reply to:
But Miles (and the rest, as above) is also a horribly unethical and not terribly skilled BASE jumper. His antics at our legal span are way over the line, and his idea of BASE skill appears to be "how bad can I flail and live?" A "rad" jump is not the same thing as a skillful jump. If there hadn't been trees to break the fall at Bridge Day, I'm pretty sure that his daughter would never really have known her father--and that would be a true tragedy.
Tom Aiello,
I actually think you owe Miles a debt of gratitude. From the way I heard the story, one of your recent students had just returned to TF about six weeks ago from moabville with a whopping 10 jumps and thought he would try a rollover with a head wind from the IBP bridge. Well as it turned out, he climbed over but couldnt control his parachute and it ended up blowing under the bridge. The nose was catching air so he struggled to pull it in and thought it must be caught on something. So he cut it away and then climbed back over the rail. So now his chute has blown onto the steel under the bridge and is caught there. Miles was hiking up and witnessed the whole thing. So Miles goes and tracks down this student of yours at the visitors center and finds him on the phone with the sheriff. I guess he tried to call you but you didnt answer so he called the sheriff to ask permission to go on the steel to get the canopy. Well of course the sheriff said no and then proceeded to call IDOT (Idaho Department of Transportation)—the same guys who want to shut down this bridge to jumping. So Miles tells your student to call the sheriff back and tell him the canopy blew off. Your student does that and the sheriff starts asking him if the bridge was damaged and then chews out your student because IDOT had been called and they were about to bring out a big crane to park in the middle of the bridge so a crew of guys could risk there lives to retrieve the canopy at an expense that was way more than the canopy is worth. Then Miles went and got the canopy for your student. Regardless of other activities that you dont agree with, I personally am damn glad that Miles was there so that we didnt end up having a crane parked in the middle of the bridge, stopping traffic while some IDOT guys risked their lives to get a BASE jumpers canopy down. Thats the kind of thing that can shut this bridge down. Since he was your student and based on what you said to John H., then I guess that would have been your fault too.
In reply to:
ncjumpjunkie says:
By what your saying is that its a chain reaction that falls on the teacher if someone falls into doing things their way instead of what they are tought. The most experienced guy is at fault.
Tom Aiello replys:
Yup. That's exactly what I'm saying.
If one of my students goes out and blazes something, even years later, I do share some of the responsibility. The sooner after they leave my tutelage, the more of the burden is mine, I believe.
-- Tom Aiello
