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Some more bad news for Moab, we were doing ok until Wednesday.

Don't know much about it. I was sitting in the bar and the manager told me that some BASE jumper broke their back. He jumped off Tombstone and was air lifted to Grand Junction. He broke L1. Ouch!

We didnt' know anyone was in town so when we heard it we didn't know who it was. According to 2nd hand info, the guy had 2 BASE jumps. I guess a friend of his from the East coast brought him out to the nice SAFE cliffs.

I guess the accident happened like this. I guess the rigger shortened the deep brake settings way too much so when it opened up, he was flying backwards towards the wall. Didn't know what was wrong. He thought it was a line over?? and then dumped his toggles. Was flying to the ground with the rear risers and then picked his feet up to land, way up above his lower back. He landed hard and broke his L1. It also happened at 2-3pm. The winds were blowing 28-38 mph all afternoon long. I thought my manifest office was going to blow away!

Very surprising to hear that anyone would be jumping.

I say 'I guess' alot is because I don't know the facts from of this incident. Just 2nd hand info.

Heal fast man.

Also on a side note, Gus Wing fly forever my friend!

-

Oh boy, I'm very sorry to hear that . . .

And while it's too early for conclusions there is one general lesson in all types of parachuting. Always use your legs to protect your torso from impacts.

A good analogy is an aircraft pilot using their landing gear to absorb crash impact energy thereby protecting the fuselage . . .

I used to strut like John Travolta, but now I waddle like Elmer Fudd, but at least I can still walk . . .

NickD
BASE 194

Talk about a chain of mistakes...


Any idea what the level of experience of the friend was?

It's disturbing that we still have people with 2 jumps thinking that slider down cliffs are a good idea.

And testing their DBS for the first time off a solid object?

<shakes head>

Did you forget to add the potential strong winds to the chain of bad events?

Get well vibes being sent to the injured jumper.

I used to strut like John Travolta, but now I waddle like Elmer Fudd, but at least I can still walk . . .

Gee Tom, I can't help but think that using a slider would just have made it worse.

I got too much time on my hands, I gotta get on the road soon.

I used to strut like John Travolta, but now I waddle like Elmer Fudd, but at least I can still walk . . .
__________________________________________________
In my case, it's only one leg that's shorter. I figure if I ever get lost in the woods, eventually I'll do a complete circle and end up back where I started.

Hi guys,

I know few more details about this jump.

Three friends of mine from the NE were in Moab this week. The guy who got hurt really had 2 BASE jumps he made at BD 2004 and 2003, one each year. He has about 300 skydives.
He and I were supposed to go to the potato bridge in two weeks so he could gain some experience.

He did not tell me he was going to Moab probably because he knew I was going to bitch at him for even thinking about going off a cliff with no experience. It was a last minute decision he made.

Anyway I am the rigger who put the DBS, the tailgate, and the tail pocket on his Raven IV. He was jumping it with a brand new Apex Vertex 2 that he had never used before. By the way I am not mentoring this guy. I was just making sure he was not going to do anything stupid and supervise his pack jobs and gear.

The guy only skydived the canopy once after me bitching at him for months to test fly it. After the mods were done I told him to skydive it first but he said it was OK and he was going to test jump it off the potato bridge.

This guy although very, very nice, he is extremely impulsive and known to make poor decisions especially under peer pressure.

I just heard the he was the one who got hurt this morning and I still can't believe what happened.

He should have not been allowed to jump off that cliff or any cliff for that matter especially with those winds.

Nobody with two BASE jumps (slider up), not many skydives, and poor canopy control skills, has any business off any cliff.

The good news is that he does not have spinal cord injury, the surgery went well, and he will recover.

Please guys learn from this and watch out for the people who you care for and who cannot make good judgment on their own.

Updates:

I just talked to him. He's at St. Marie's in Grand Junction, CO.

His back surgery was 6.5 hours long. He had a piece of bone that broke from L1 in the spinal canal. They had to remove it and use a piece of hip bone to reconstruct the vertebra. It's my understanding they braced L1 laterally with two other vertebrae, but I don't know the exact details.

Luckily he has no nerve damage.

He might get released in 10 days-two weeks.

He is in good spirit and sedated heavily.

His mom and girlfriend flew there.

About the jump he told me the winds were gusty. There were five people on the jump. Three jumped, he was the fourth, and the last one did not jump.

According to him, his canopy opened on-heading but felt mushy and start veering to one side. He did not know what was wrong with it, thought he had a line-over, so he released the toggles and landed on his butt with rears. It took the ambulance over two hours to arrive and then he was airlifted to his current location.

hey nick
i'm originally from NE my self. but live in salt lake city now (1 1/2 yrs now).i jump in moab often.just wondering which DZ there from in case i may know them. i'm not gonna kick a man while he's down
I WISH HIM A SPEEDY(full) RECOVERY!!!....but the more experienced jumper(FRIEND) that allowed him to jump moab w/two base jump(one per yr.)is a different story.i know what it's like to be busted up bad . haveing broke my pelvis in 4 places on a tower jump(it sucks)also know what it's like to be rescued off the face of a 300 ft wall after a 180 & strike just recently.so please ALL be VERY CURRENT & have enough experience to play on these rocks here in UT (or any where)...peace.play hard..be safe..hope to see my buds in TF ON MEM DAY....EDGE-EE#762

Whilst I wish the guy a speedy recovery and all the best of luck for the future, I can only think of terms such as "ill prepared, shortcuts, lack of respect and understanding, gene pool, & natural selection".

The information is out there. It is not hard to find.

If you choose not to look. . . . . well, that is the choice you make. No sympathy for really obvious shortcuts.

Sorry for being harsh, but people don't seem to learn when we are overly sympathetic and nice.

Flame away, but it does not fix the root cause.

>>It's not really all that harsh. Not as harsh as the reality of having a broken back. We are all ultimately responsible for own decisions. If you find yourself standing at the edge of a cliff looking down at the road with gusting winds contemplating a jump, the realities of what of you're about to do cannot fail to hit home. You either choose to jump, or choose not to jump. It's up to you.

QUOTE "the realities of what of you're about to do cannot fail to hit home"

Stick around a while longer....there's all types in this sport......you may be surprised.

More than a decade in the sport, 750 odd jumps, 5 continents, many countries & sites. . . living, dead, good, average, bad, MANY awesome people, some &*%$#s, etc.

I am not suprised anymore. Just disappointed on some occasions. I enjoy all the differences in the sport, except one. COMMON SENSE - this spectrum should be narrow and the bell curve should be a spike on the hard right of the scale. But alas, it isn't. And we keep reading about. . . . . .

But I am still a student with much to learn, and I will always remain so. By default, sticking around longer will probably bring more surprises. Hopefully there are more good ones than bad.

For all those doing good things, keep it up. You are in the majority. For the others, time for reflection. The future holds so much for you.

Stay Safe
Have Fun
Good Luck

 

Yes.

If he was my protege, I'd have looked him straight in the eyes and said, "This jump is far too technical for your experience level. The conditions are crap, even for an experienced BASE jumper. There is no reason for you to exit now. Let's go to the bridge and we can get you some more experience before we jump this together."

This sport is about free choice, but we have a duty as members of the BASE community to look out for the ones who don't have enough experience to make sound BASE decisions yet.

This includes experienced BASE jumpers who are operating out of their normal comfort zone. If a jumper is more experienced than me in a certain area, I will carefully evaluate their advice and make my decision.

I wonder if this jumper was given a no bullshit assessment of the conditions and how they relate to his experience level.

A carefully stated piece of advice could have probably prevented (or maybe just delayed) this accident.

sounds like another case of confusing ambition with ability.think im gonna go steal me a jet fighter and take it for a spin...cant fly for shit but how hard can it be?

Well, it's so easy a bag of dogfood could do it--haven't you heard?

I unfotunately have to agree. As much as I hate seeing fellow man get himself into trouble, its not like this guy was out in the backcountry on a low avalanche danger day and got bit by an unlucky slide. I do indeed hope he heals well, but fuck, get a clue.

Lotta kibble hitting the wall lately it seems.

 

Dude, seriously, don't ever sweat that Tom giving you shit about backing off a jump.

Ask him about the morning load at the Green Giant in NorCal. HaHa!!!!

That was truly funny.

Or all of us mocking you from the bottom of the bridge.

Hi all-

I just got a call from Bernie...

He's doing fine, happy that there is no spinal cord damage, and sorry to have caused such a stir.

I read him most of this thread, and he wanted me to express his complete understanding at the error in judgement he made in making that jump at his experience level.

For the record, as the four of them sat at the top of T...., the winds were gusty at times with the occasional lull. The 28-38 mph winds at the dz were not what they were experiencing on T.....

Bernie realizes the worst part of the whole episode is that he really felt that he could do it; that it was ok. The reports of the deployment, flight and landing are accurate with one exception; when Bernie flared with his rear risers he flared too hard and stalled backward onto his butt, the force of which broke his back.

He agrees with the comments in this thread, and also reiterated that "this sucks". He's very grateful to his girlfriend and mother for flying to be with him; I can relate with him how lonely and awful it can be lying broken up in a hospital bed.

Bernie appreciates the good wishes for his fast recovery, and says that he does plan to jump again, but next time taking things in the proper order.

You guys, let's make sure to keep looking out for each other. It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, and then the guy with the pencil in his hand feels like crap for ever.

Peace, GET WELL SOON, BERNIE!

K

Glad to hear he's ok!

I hope that when you all make it out to Moab, make wise decisions. Oh, and try to have the experience too.

When I first got to Moab, I was told that you should have 30-40 BASE jumps before you start jumping in Moab because of how dangerous it is.

I firmly believe that unwritten rule.

Be safe!

-
Clint

is that all?

so in theory someone with 150 skydives and 30-40 jumps from the potato bridge is experienced enough to jump there?

i know this is an extreme case of what could be but given the jump number minimums for a manufacturers course its possible.....what a fookin scary thought!!

 

which is what he said by 30-40 jumps off the S....

 

i do more tend(whith out taking words out of his mouth)to think that more different objects than that S is to be preffered

 

i do agree whith you,but knowing what Kind of objects 621 has jumped and dont know how many different but knows its ALOT,which tends to count more in this part of the world

if i have jumped 100jumps at my local A in daylight i wont count them as much as i count the other 100 were i have opened objects gained new objects tryed difficlties in many ways other than the object you can nearly do a boogie off...

That i off the local forgiving objecrt can do nearly as i want dosnt mean i can do the same as i go to UK playing their stuff(should we call it mine as im over there so often he he)

Cheers Sean if i were whith you guys i would feel better(or atleast be drunk),sitting here drinking a "London Pride"(1 pint ofcourse),dreaming me away from here.Im not going out tonite(were the last 2 nites) i guess its more healthy that way,besides im nearly drunk...

fab is my hero whilst im stuck at work

As someone mentioned the DBS could have played a role in this accident, although it is hard to tell with all the variables in this particular jump.

Anyhow, there is a lot of info about the DBS, here, on blink, and via CR.

To summarize what the DBS accomplishes is a faster inflation, less surge, and above all a canopy that will fly very mushy with little forward speed. The latter will help in case of an off heading opening by giving the pilot a bit more time to react. I personally would not jump a solid object without DBS.

Adam wrote a nice article on how to properly set the DBS:

http://www.crmojo.com/adobepdf/dbsinsert.pdf

It is critical that you skydive your canopy with the DBS few times to find out if it is set correctly. Also you should take it off a S few times before attempting an E or B with it.

A properly set DBS can be a life saver but please take the time to fully explore it. The canopy will open differently and feel much different.

In BASE knowing your gear is IMO priority number one. You can throw gainers like an Olympic gold medalist diver, fly your WS like Robi, but if you don’t fully know your gear those skills will not save your life.

There are tons of tests every one should do off a S beside jumping and landing. That’s why the best BASE jumpers keep going back to the S to sharpen their skills and try new things.

Consider 2 jumpers:

Jumper 1: 200 skydives, Potato Span FJC, 20 "object avoidance drill" jumps off the potato span.

Jumper 2: 200 skydives, Potato Span FJC, 20 jumps off 20 other different objects.


In my opinion, Jumper #1 is better prepared to deal with a 180 off a solid object, because he has practiced dealing with this problem. Jumper #2 probably has much better object evaluation skills, having seen 20 more objects, but I'd feel much better about taking Jumper #1 to a low solid object.

Avoiding object strike is the way to avoid our leading cause of injury and death. Practicing avoidance ought to be your very first order of business upon completion of your first jump course--before you start jumping a bunch of different things.

Learning to create greater separation from the object (i.e. better launch skills to get further away) ought to be your next priority. Visiting more objects (especially solid ones, where there is a chance you'll need those object avoidance skills) ought to wait until you have practiced these basic survival skills.

Having done a sketchy slider-down cliff on my 16th jump, I'm in no position to comment on whether or not he was capable of jumping there. However, if I understand it correctly, this injury was only the result of a poor rear-riser landing. It probably didn't help that he was in a hostile environment and putting a lot of stress on his senses. Nonetheless, this accident could have happened just the same on a skydive if one would skip proper coaching before attempting a rear-riser landing.

Practice rear-riser landings on skydives and at friendly base landing areas. On a base canopy a proper rear-riser flare can be as soft as a landing on toggles.

It's great to hear Bernie is heading home and surrounded by friends and family. Heal well and quick dude!

yep

just ask faber about landing on rear risers with out practicing it!

With this caveat.


Word...

its all good if you like broken bones you might also need to clean the clothes from blood..

Tom i do agree whith you some how,but fist of all i guess its rear that you see a 20 jumps guy having 20 different objects...But having 4-5 in the bag whith in your 20 first is a great tool were you also learned how to be sharp on avoiding objects and might even more important different lz

I think that learning to deal with various LZ's is the next thing to practice after object avoidance. Since LZ's are more often a source of injury (where object strike more often results in death), I'd put the object avoidance before the landing skills in the learning progression.

Why would you want to visit new objects to practice avoidance skills, rather than doing them at a familiar, safe span, and being able to focus entirely on learning the skills?

 

surely landing skills are something you should have before you start BASE?

I suppose that depends on how you define "landing skills."

You should certainly have the ability to land a BASE canopy in a variety of conditions. I've yet to see anyone starting who had really developed the ability to land on talus, for example, or in some other conditions not easily simulated at the DZ.

i do belive as you jump off a new object you´l more likely jump more safe at that object.

also i think the only way you can practice your skills is to do as you desided ,meaning if you jump off object a and has desided to a way dealing whith an offheadding you should do it.

do you guys jump off the bridge in a floater exit were the pillars are just to see if you make it clear? or do you make turns in the safe envioment as you deside beforehand?
im not sure i get it.

as Mac says you should be abel to land a canopy before you BASE but its also important to know how to make the flight before,ewhich i think you learn more by,by getting new objects so you dont do the same patern all the time

Full floaters, facing the span. If you fly under the bridge, you "airstrike". If you get turned around before flying under the bridge, you're safe.

might my loss of jumping off bridges then ive only got 1 whith were 143ft which i sléd

i see what you say.. but only stuff you can use at that S,through

 

i see i didnt think clear,im drunk sorry guys

"Why would you want to visit new objects to practice avoidance skills, rather than doing them at a familiar, safe span, and being able to focus entirely on learning the skills?"

That would be the same as going to a different dz every time and new landing area.

One of the PD boys told me that it takes 30-40 swoops at a new dz to get the comfortable feeling.

-

Agree totally. on average, a Span is the best starting point for new jumpers. And it is about the skills you learn, not the number of jumps you do. By definition, you have to do a number of jumps to learn those skills but if you are focused, you will need less jumps to develop them.

Once slight correction / question. I believe (and data I have backs this up) that object strike is our leading cause of SERIOUS INJURY and death, but landings are the leading cause of overall injuries.

Ok, i agree with Tom...but what can we do as a whole to prepair better? We always seem to get wound up after a few people we know go in.....For crap sake...
We send people to space and we can solve these simple problems with all these people who have such vast knowlege.... i dont buy into that...we figured out that with anti lock breaking we wont go out of control ...whats the "180" mystical opening statistic... It just sounds a bit lame in this day and age with the technoligy we have now... We even have ground to air communication now....there is technoligy already available....we have options..I could be wrong...

It's something that only a thousand people on this entire planet care about. If you really want it fixed quickly, make sure that money can be made from it, or that the United States department of defense takes an interest.

Until then, all canopy openings will remain way too chaotic and turbulent for any us to ever fully understand.

Of course, therein lies some of the beauty of basejumping as well. Ask yourself honestly; would you still jump if your five year old nephew could safely huck himself of any cliff as easily as he could ride the rollercoaster?

From an email-conversation between three experienced (800+ jumps) BASE jumpers:

The disturbingly prescient thing about that is that the writer is dead--less than 3 years later.

Hey Jap, Well thats a thousand people who could make a difference. And yes, i would still base jump if a five year old could....being alittle far fetched. Let me ask you this, would have started base jumping if someone told you its a 1 in 2 chance you will go in?//

I dont think so... Death is a integral part of life....not just base jumping...Think about flying or driving or going out in a boat....your in a container....full of explosive fuel......moving at speed.....come on thats life....life is a risk..... Do you base jump to defy death or for the pure real injoyment of feeling free and flying?

Skydiving, climbing and flying use to be small group of what people called dare devels....That has all changed.....Base jumping will evolve also and i see nothing but good will come out of it...

I know someone has said in the past, "i give myself 50:50" each jump, and I also give myself 50:50 each jump for injury or death - this way I stay switched on and I enjoy it so much more (it also means I walk down alot though!)

Although I scare the shit out of myself more so than normal each jump due to this attitude, I find that it keeps the reality of what I am doing...................

I suffer horribly from vertigo, and BASE in general scares me alot, I always expect something horrible to happen to me EVERY jump - but this is the way I like it and it gives me a fucking big smile after..............

M

Unless of course something horrible does happen.

<breaks into song> "Smile, although your heart femur's breaking..." <song ends>

women are more dangerus than BASE
thanks to thouse of you(inkluding you adrian) whos trying to make my face smile again.your doing a great job,i would have likedd to have more guys like you here arround..

oh well im drunk again..

I used to have a signature line on another BB which read: 'If it's got tits or wheels it's trouble'.

But the good news is, in my post apocalyptic world fantasy,
I'll be looking out for someone to muck out the women.. consider yourself hired.

>>"Odds are that one of us will be dead within the next 3 years....<<

>>>The disturbingly prescient thing about that is that the writer is dead--less than 3 years later.<<<

Insurance Roulette . . .

Four of us are jumping buildings in a time when none of us are all that sure about what we're doing. We had the idea of chipping in for life insurance on each of us figuring sooner rather than later we'd collect. The biggest issue is if one had the worst happen should we take the money, or let it ride, by purchasing more insurance on the remaining three.

No matter, here it is almost twenty years later and all four are still breathing . . .

NickD
BASE 194

Are all four still jumping?

One quit, one skydives, and two BASE jump occasionally . . .

I should have said we didn't totally bank on dying by BASE, we just thought with our personality types something would happen, i.e, jealous husband, car crash, etc.

NickD
BASE 194