Basejumper.com - archive

Does anyone know anything about this accident.I have seen some bits and pieces but nothing in detail.Has the name of the jumper been released yet?Are they ok?

He'll be OK, as Tom said, fracture, but no spinal damage

who is this guy, how many wingsuit jumps does he have, and why did he hum it so low that he impacted the water without a full canopy? I don't care how many BASE jumps he had.

Chuck

You don't care how many BASE jumps he had?

And why would that be???

Was this a skydiving incident and no one before you had spotted this clear & obvious distinction?

Somebody takes a wingsuit off a bridge into still air, with less than 900 feet to impact- now that doesn't sound like a beginner wing suit BASE jump to me.

Whether he was an experienced BASE jumper or not could be a significant factor contributing to an impact incident, either way.

It is certainly a factor that any future wingsuit BASE jumper might contemplate.

I'd be fascinated to hear why you might think that irrelevant.

Quick question,
does any one know the name of the jumper yet? and if not can you tell me the color of the wingsuit? We have a packer that went to BD to wingsuit it, and we can not reach him. Thanks!

I was hearing a rumor of an all white suit with fairly small wings.

Pilot: Will H. from southern Ontario
Suit: all white Prodigy

Leisure Sports Photography's pics of his landing in the top row of photos at:
[Edit: full URL deleted - doesn't work if not already viewing the site.]

See http://www.leisuresportsphoto.com- the people who do the Bridge Day photos every year - in the 9 to 10 am landings section, page 5 of 7.

Thanks for posting the link.

And I just spent the last hour checking out all the pictures. Thanks for that too

Damn. Slider wasn't down at all.

Almost looks like he would have been better off landing without anything deployed.
Doesnt seem like the canopy has taken any speed out of the freefall/flight yet...

probably as close as you can get to actualy landing a wingsuit without a canopy...

anybody knows if it was an intentional lowpull or an incidental one ?

Not true. From Yuri (outrager):

"The ultimate wingsuit low pull award belongs to Den. He nearly landed a wingsuit a couple of years ago, impacting at line stretch with his slider still stowed in a C-line rubberband."

That was over the HARD LAND, not water.

Wow, that's crazy. I'm pretty sure in the BD case the bottom skin helped a lot.

It wasn't totally pressurized, but he had more than bottom skin inflation.

Yeah he was in an all white wing suit with smallwings. I commented at the time I saw it that the suit was probably a prodigy. He also had an all red canopy but I guess we all know this already.


As for the flight, he looked like he went head down for the first few seconds. He kind of fluttered some. I have seen videos of Robbi and others where they are flat and stable from exit to full flight. I though he had flown for aways but then again I was expecting that since it was the first wingsuit BASE Jump I have ever seen in person.


Brit, I missed you at bridge day and didn't seen any of your jumps :( Are you goign to post some up?


DBR

It was on our commercial network news.

Go here: http://www.vtm.be/...dex_bekijkonline.htm
Choose Zondag (Sunday); Laat (Late). Zoter, in the post below, knows where you can find the piece on BD.

Seeing as he didn't die, might as well share this link. In return if you would be so kind as to answer me this quesion. If you hit the water without full inflation, are you likely to get injured by he bottom of the river, or rocks or something? Or do you just hit the water and is that what causes injury/death? In other words...if you land hard...is it going to help if you make your body long...or will that cause you to hit the bottom.

The report is 10:34 into the main news feature and has video of the wingsuit exit/pull/splashdown as well as Brian Schuberts exit.

Your report shows the exit of Brian Schuberts.
He did die. And since you posted another link then promised in your post, I am not going to answer your questions in return. Maybe someone else will...

Sigh.

The exit of Brian Schubert has been posted numerous times on these boards. For once the press did a good job not showing the freefall or impact, even if they could have. Furthermore I didn't post this to show that again.

The link I posted did in fact show the wingsuit exit, flight and ultralow "deployment". Zoter, for example, was able to locate it. So if you want to see what I "promised", perhaps you should have another look. The "in return" remark was just a figure of speech...

It depends on the angle you hit at.

In most cases, the impact with the surface of the water is the primary mechanism of injury. However, there have been cases where jumpers were injured impacting the bottom of the lake/river (usually they sustained injuries both at the water surface and at the bottom).

I have impacted at high speeds with a canopy at line stretch. Although I was seriously injured, I credit the canopy with preventing me striking the bottom of the river (because the thing that stopped my downward progress was the fabric of my canopy hitting the water--I was at line stretch below it, submerged).

sorry, my bad. My appologies. I just scroled it thru and all I saw was the exit of Brian.
And as I just saw, Tom answerd your question. And he has first hand experience in high speed water impact.

That's ok!

If he hadn't deployed this would have likely been a fatality. Glad that the jumper is alive. Hope he gets well soon.

It looks from the video like a lot of altitude was lost in the deployment sequence prior to PC release(almost 2 secs) and then the deployment was almost vertical.

Maybe TomA who saw James's jump from below can post his observations but my bet is that James's opening was more horizontal than vertical(used less altitude to open).

Kris.

as far as his exit goes...

On the website consumptionjunction.com, in the videos section, is a clip labeled bridge fatality that appears to have the two incidents confused. The video is a white jumpsuit with a red parachute, extremely low opening, line stretch and big spalsh.

Looking from the Dutch video it seems that the impact with water was around 10 seconds from exit. If have understood, the rockdrop is around 9 seconds without a wingsuit. Also from the video, the opening sequence seems to have almost no horizontal trajectory. It seems the jumper tried to make the suit fly too long, but almost stalled all the way to (low) pulling altitude. Any thoughts from the people who saw it from above?
Hope he shall heal fast.

Damn Will, lucky you were above water huh? Dunno if you'll get to read this but i hope you mend soon, don't forget, we have another litter picking tour of europe next summer...

Sparky, Joel-man or Bradley, if your reading this can you please PM me, thanks

http://www.consumptionjunction.com/...mp;type=1&page=1

All I can say that there are huge good wibes coming to the hospital from the swiss valley... Hope you heal quick Will and I´ll see you again here next summer. If anybody has any info on how our friend is doing, drop me an PM.

It seems like that slider up opening was a little slow. Does anything think that the slower decent rate (since he was in a wing suit) delayed the deployment? I've seen faster slider up deployments that would have pressurized much more from that pitch point.

My buddy click has awsum photo's of the entire incident from right beside me .He was shooting about 10 fps .I don't know when or if he is going to release them on his web site yet?
He told me he is sending them into skydiving , so watch for a cover shot soon......

Yeah, it's "awsum" when you get to shoot good photos of someone getting hurt!
Tell your buddy to send them to a whuffo magazine, maybe he can even get a few bucks out of it...

looked about right for an Ace 310 to me

I don't know if you have noticed that bigger canopies take longer to open.

Unvented canopies also take longer to open than vented.

you have to compare apples with apples

Direct video link for download here:

http://www.consumptionjunction.com/...oadsnew/cj_62176.wmv

10 seconds of wingsuit exit, flight, and low deployment cropped from the larger news report on SkydivingMovies.com.

how much did he really slow down. If hes alive from that I think he would of made without dumping. Alive means having a pulse.

he swung underneath the opening canopy allowing his legs and spine to take the impact. if he hadn't pulled he would have his entire torso ripped open by high speed impact and would never had a chance. he's lucky as it is

I din't catch that it was an Ace (non venented canopy) 310 (heavier). Makes more sense.

 Thanks for everyones best wishes,
I'm home walking around in pain and in a brace.(8-10 weeks) Fracture of T7 with no surgery required and no other injuries. Just let you know how it came to be. It was going to be exit practice for big wall jumps for future prodigy flights. I had in recent past been doing alot of sub teminal tracking jumps from a local in just my tracking pants and jacket. During this BD practice wingsuit exit jump I made a stupid decision to fly the wingsuit longer than planned while in mid flight (Not planning to pull lower at this point). Got it flying forward quickly got me excited to fly it a bit using depth perception as my warning buzzer; It certainly changes quite a bit in a wingsuit. Anyways as I reached for my pilot chute ground rush came back fast. I thought I was dead....... Why I had to push it I can't explain. I happy to be alive. Time to step back and take a break for a while re-evaluate my responsibilities to my family and friends.
P.S. I am truly sorry if in any way Iv'e cast a shadow on what has allways been a wonderfull event that my family and I have enjoyed over the years.
Thanks for the support
Will

Good post man. Thanks for writing that.

glad you will heal. Hind sight is always good if one can learn from it. I was always told no wing suits off this bridge due to lack of altitude i heard this from ppl i respect who heard it from yuri and his experience with wing suits and how long it actually takes to gain flight. I watched the video and I'm just damn glad you lived and maybe you can jump again you said it your self best time to review your actions

Well dude, when you heal up, I hope you can appreciate what a sweet-ass piece of video that is...unintentional as it may have been.

Ya got some serious stones brudda. My whuffo friends just go slack-jawed.

Get better

Heal quickly Willh!

Will,

I saw it all from above I am glad you are ok! You did a good two handed style wingsuit pull but I guess you just needed one more second.

All the wuffo's up top were like is that guy dead? They covered him up. I said nah, he was swimming after he landed. He had all white on, that wasn't a sheet.

Blue Skies bro.

DBR

Hey Will, I'm glad you made it and your injuries aren't worse. I hope you heal fast and fully. The video and pics are scary. Just pull a little higher next time.

Really glad you are okay and are not paralyzed.
Heal strong and do lots of rehab to build those
muscles up to prevent future injuries from hard
openings.

hey Will, any update on how you are doing? I hope you are feling better.

DBR