Basejumper.com - archive

After reading the numerous threads, I think the jump community so easily forgets the consequences of an injury. What's the matter people?

I guess I learned the hard way too but the numerous obviously dumb injuries are a little overwhelming to me.

I have made mistakes too. Over my jump career, I have broken my tailbone, shattered my femur, broke the ball of my inner ankle, hyperextended my knee, and fallen in razor wire. I can tell you that these injuries are life long. I still walk with a limp occasionally. Phantom pain is life long and will only get worse with age. Weather changes can truly suck. I cannot sit for extended periods which affects my work meetings.

The financial consequences can also be devastating. Any one of the numerous medical bills that are not paid can haunt you to the point that you cannot buy a house, car, get a job, or rent an apartment.

Plan you jumps and jump your plan.

I just got out of the hospital 4 or 5 hours ago. I had the entire outer meniscus removed and about half of the inner meniscus because I'm to stupid to land in a big green field...
The doctor told me I will probably have atrocious (I don't know if this is English...) in about 10 to 15 years. But the whole thing has two positive aspects: At least my right and left knee are now damaged more or less symmetrical and the second is that I'm already old...
I'm joking now but I'm not looking forward to the day that the atrocious kicks in...

arthritis ?

No, it's Osteoarthritis

Edit because I just looked it up...

"atrocious" is a word in the English language but you used it in the wrong context. It means that something is "absurd or ridiculous". For instance it is atrocious that my former property management company allowed one of my prior tenants to deface the oak woodwork in my house when the tenant let their children draw pictures with a felt marker on my oak walls and oak cabinets.

You sound a little upset

Osteoarthritis and Arthritis are both Atrocious

Degenerative arthritis is not a good look at 32 years of age... I get reminded every day that maybe that extra little bit of freefall was not such a good idea...

lost my job, got into debt, hurt the people around me because of the mental battle a slow recovery and multiple surgeries has on someone...

I got cocky, I got complacent, and I got overly confident of my capabilities to battle gravity and try and actually get a win rather than a stalemate....

I fucked up... and it’s so easy to do....

Pain is not temporary.... and glory is over rated...

What doesn't kill you makes stronger, right?

My family and friends, hell pretty much everyone, have been asking me if I'm going to stop now. I tell them if I stepped on a roller skate getting out of my car should I stop driving, stop getting out of my car, what???

If I lost my leg to this incident, which is highly unlikely but still possible if I get the wrong type of infection, I'd be that much more motivated to jump again.

It has caused some problems in my life, but it has also caused me to think about everything in a different light. It pulls you out of what you think and know and gets you into an area of investigation. Ity presents you with an opportunity to look at what it is you do and whether or not it fits your life.

Not speaking to anyone specifically, but if you're drowning in sorrow over the consequences of what happened, take this opportunity to review the possibility of your life and make choices appropriate to where you feel you should be.

I now have a much more positive light toward life than I ever did.... but I will say that my journey through injury did have a similar mental effect on me as when I was addicted to heroin. Don’t belittle the people that struggle through the metal effects of being injured. Although, getting over my injury and my addiction to heroin (and lets be honest, every fucking single drug on this earth) have enabled me to have an outlook on life that is overly happy.

I heard once a quote, (I think from Tom A) “If this had put me off BASE then I did not really understand the consequences in the first place”, and I think that is so true.

Many people can’t understand why I went back to BASE after my injury, and I always quote that to them… I have to admit, if an injury stops you BASEing, then why were you BASEing in the first place???

Going back to my heroin analogy, when we sat around sharing needles and shooting up brown in a dirty room and one of us went “blue” and we/they had to revive them/me, not once did they/I say….. I don’t think this is for me... We know the risks and the pleasure out weigh them... If the risk scares you off one day because you get close to the "end result", then I actually feel that you did not know what you were doing in the first place…

Broken tib/fib (inc dislocated ankle)
Shattered femur
Both ACL's
Both meniscus (right knee)

It seems I'm a little bit clumsy.

No shit.....

nahh mate your just FAT hows the healing going mate?

460,not many years ago i started the cool sport of fixed object jumping,i knew people get injuryed and even killed.
People i know/knew has been injuryed worse than i,people has died...
anyway on a solo on my jump #30(5-6years ago) i fuck up a rearriser landing leaving me on the cold feild in late sept for 2,5 hour,nearly killing me...
I thourght i had just broken my fib n tib,i indeed had...
3 days befor my 30years bday i can tell you if i get a new ankel or if the ankel has to be stiff..happy b day
T minus 9days.. til i know how my future will turn...

Whiplash, torn neck/shoulder muscles and severely bruised ribcage from hard opening last summer(skydiving canopy)....$2300.00 hospital bill.

BD2006 compression fracture of my L1 Vertebra, ambulance ride, X-Rays, ER charges....$4200.00 (so far)

Having Blue Cross/Blue Shield Health Insurance...Priceless!

If it wasn't for good health insurance I would probably have to give up jumping.

you guys are weak. im 22 and i already have phantom pains, severe arthritis, walk with a pretty bad limp, constant pain.

im screwed for life.

I've jump for years with guys plagued with acquired, selective, systemic vaginitis.

But I think mine is genetic...

Care to share what happened?

So did we plan the jump and jump the plan when that fog rolled in on our climb the other night? That was pretty intense, and pretty stupid none the less. "Man, that other antenna looks like Jack and the bean stalk.." "Shine the light!" "I can't see shit"...
Just to clarify, we were just too damn lazy to climb down, and too much partying to do afterwards! BUT, this should not be the excuse for a bad limp, or death. Think I will opt not to be so lazy to climb down next time.
Edit to add: I have also climbed down more than 10 times in the last 2 months. Seems like the more I jump, the more willing I am to just say to hell with it, it just doesn't feel right, and there is always next time.
Kind of an ironic thread bro..

Ha, I spent that much with one helicopter rescue ride this year and was not even hurt...
But seriously, with my injuries in the last 12 month with this ride inclueded I spent (luckily my insurance paid a big part of it) over 10'000 USD

$90K from shattered femur - just below the neck. Not even from BASE but GL-ing - and no heli, just ambulance!

Still fighting my lame Blue Cross AND supplemental (we pay your out of pocket!)insurance 1.5 years later... my credit is screwed til it gets resolved. More and more it looks like I'm gonna have to hire an attorney...

That's cause you're a feeble old man, JJ - suck it up! Two very swollen ankles are all I'll cop to - climbing injuries worse - ACL's sound like a gunshot when they blow :(

if we jump together, all i have to do is run faster than you if the man is chasing us.

First off...the only complainin I'm doing is cause of my phucked up, muny grubbin lame ass insurance companies! god damn chinsy muthas! I was never late on my premiums!!!

And second - I may be old...and I may be feeble...but I'm still ALIVE and walkin and postin to you geeky nerds! I may have knocked my head against the ground a few too many times...and I may have broken a few too many bones BUT these feeble ol bones'll kick yer ass swanmaestro - whoever you are! Lame ass, weak little skydivin, wanna be base jumper beeaatch!

I'm sure BASE is just waiting to take another inexperienced-non thinkin', "oh look at me I'm a skydiver and I'm cool" soft and cuddly... easy victim like you...

The reaper awaits!

Don't be a (I know all about parachutes and physics and fear) skydiver...

JJ

You tell 'em JJ! I can't believe the lack of respect I see from these newer jumpers towards the guys further back. Next, one of these idjits will be saying that Anne or Moe or Kevin have NOTHING of use to tell their sorry asses...because they're SKYDIVERS and they know it all!!!!
And Moe's prediction comes true: skydivers with Internet and credit cards buy BASE equipment and start killing/injuring themselves left and right...and there goes the rep of BASE ever deeper into the toilet.
Thanks, kids! You do BASE such a wonderful service...(heavy sarcasm obvious, I hope).

Be safe, have fun, and soft landings...
K

It's only gonna get worse K
I'll bet there are a few trying to figure out who Moe, Anne, and Kevin are right now.

well, where's the video?
(if there's no video, it didn't happen!)


[I'm sure some will miss the satire...]

You mean Moe V., Anne H., and Bombproof??

It's true now

It was true then too

"if there's no video, it didn't happen!"

There must be a secret fatality list somewhere with all of these internet folks on it, because it seems to me that The List is largely populated by BASE jumpers very much like the folks I know and respect who made one bad choice at the wrong time.

Twelve BASE jumpers have died jumping in the last year. Perhaps you could enlighten the rest of us by sharing a list of those who were "skydivers with internet and credit cards"?

Edit to add: On second thought, don't. I'm not really interested in reading it.

Hey K,
I'm a new jumper and I have lots of respect for the pioneers of our sport. But my friends that I jump with are more important to me then the pioneers are (Hey Micke, your both, a pioneer and a friend so you are dobble important... )
And regarding your comment about the credit card and Internet. Your profile says that you are a BASE manufacturer and you live in Perris, so hey, you must know this. I hope people need a bit more then a Credit Card and Internet to buy one of your rigs...

This thread sure is going off topic.



As a public service annoucement; You guys might wanna watch what you say to KT. Rumor has it, she has taken up voodoo or something along those lines.

There is more to BASE than death. Although I do not have any numbers, I have a feeling that unexperienced beginners are more susceptible to injury than experienced jumpers are.

The kind of errors that lead to injury often come from misjudgement and overconfidence. The very thing beginners have plenty off. The kind of errors that lead to death are, in many cases, on an entirely different scale.

The gung-ho beginner jumper says: "There's a slight cross-wind and the landing area is tight, but I think I'll be able to make it.". These are the type of jumps that don't necessarily kill, but do bad things to femurs and vertebraes.

The experienced jumper says: "Fuck it, I'm going home. I got cold beer in the fridge, and there's always tomorrow." This is ironic, since the experienced jumper probably has a better chance of coming out in one piece.

On the other hand, it is the experienced jumper that will say: "I can do a wingsuit gainer and still out-track this ledge", something you won't hear from a beginner.

Yes, there are exceptions to either category; but my point is that death is typically a hindsight thing whereas injury is more often than not plain-and-simple foresight.

I suspect that there will always be more experienced people on the fatality list, while the unwritten injury list continues to have all the beginners on it.

That seems reasonable. But it only serves to underscore my point -- that it is dismissive, insulting to newer jumpers, and breeds a false sense of security among the experienced when a jumper characterizes recent injuries and fatalities as resulting from "skydivers with internet and credit cards", or "jumpers doing it just for the video." Such claims are not only largely false, in my opinion, but damaging to the safety of the sport in that they encourage jumpers to chalk up any given injury or fatality to "some dumbass doing something I would never do".

That makes me think back to when I trained with a diving coach who trained several very well known, experienced, and skilled jumpers. Every person he seriously trained is now dead. He even told me that I wasn't supposed to go off and get myself killed like everyone else he trained, but he didn't expect me to follow that advice since no one else had. It's the one situation where I really didn't like being compared to those who were much better than I am.

ever consider that the experienced jumpers are trying to SLOW down the newer jumpers?
possibly because it's "some dumbass thing that I've done?" or "some dumbass thing that I've witnessed?"

why view it as simply an US vs THEM thing?

But that is precisely not how I view it. I think each of us would do well to remember that we are all -- whether we started in 1976 or 2006 -- susceptible to the sorts of mistakes that have been made in the past, and should for that reason be very careful to educate ourselves, and not to repeat them.

Going back to K's post, I fail to see how dismissing newer jumpers as a bunch of douches who are responsible for the decay of BASE does anything to improve safety. More than that, to repeat myself, I think that saying "they're not like me" does exactly the opposite.

 

Dead is Dead.
A BASE jump is a BASE jump.

if it's from a bridge over water or an underhung razor-sharp cliff with no landing area, it's still a BASE jump and we still might die. We're ALL the issue/problem. You. Me. Him. Her. Don't be that guy.

What up Pope. Dead is dead and a base jump is a base jump. But..

From my own experience - and coaching, mentoring, and watching many beginner BASE jumpers develop into well rounded confident level headed BASE jumpers...they often go thru a "passage of injury" before they level off into a "smarter" jumper...so I'll agree with that what My Two Cents, 736 Tornolf and wwarped are saying... with MMK I say yes and no. Newbies without guidance are potentially more likely to become statistics. Not all newbies assess their jumps appropriately. Hence rubberbands on PC's, flying wingsuits into walls, not having a system to make sure the bridle is attached, not being prepared for offheadings, unstable exits, etc.

It's the disillusioned that usually fuck up and die. Whether beginner, intermediate or experienced (RT, TC, TM, DW, DT, JF, LB, etc). For the beginner the disillusion is lack of guidance, for the intermediate the disillusion is over-confidence, for the experienced the disillusion is complacency, lack of foresight or forethought - whether it's gear knowledge, physics, conditions, or whatever. Every jump is experimental. Every jump needs to be thought out. And every jump needs to have the right gear to lessen a potential accident.

This call for a need to get good initial training, have a mentor, do plenty of "BASE research," know the gear and have the best gear, become intimately knowledgeable with "The List" (thanks Nick), and keeping your activities in check.

A very experienced BASEr recently indicated to me that he was weighing it out (BASE), because I think he was experiencing that disillusionment (he's doing some fantastic jumps with his buddies around the globe) that we can ALL get caught up in.

Stay focused and stay alive!
JJ

Respeck JJ...points understood and taken, BUT

Let's consider the state of this sport as it is today, if the S in TF is "closed" to legal jumping tomorrow. Considering the types of jumpers getting into the sport today, would you still feel the same way as in your post now that most of the present and future "passage of injury" jumpers (in the US anyhow) will now be doing all of the learning on that curve from antennas, cliffs, buildings, and other spans?

Maybe a question for another thread, so I'll stop now and post the question there so as not to hijack.
cheers,
pope

PS: Does this mean we may share another exit point soon??

So I told the guy at the bar "I was playing softball and the goalie got pissed and hit me in the leg with his raquet." He says "Yeah right." I said "OK, I jumped off a 250 foot bridge and ran out of altitude before I ran out of speed. Is that any easier to believe?"