Basejumper.com - archive

The latest fatality made me peruse the list once again, and I realized how relatively few slider-down accidents there are.

Just estimating the numbers, I'd say that about 80% of accidents are slider up cliff jumps, 17% are total mals (static-line, PC issue, skydiving gear), and the remaining 3% is the type of jumping that makes up my home-turf.

Europe is getting really scary these days, maybe I should just stay at home and stick to the safe slider-down jumps...

Just like Faber, that other Dane.

what is this 3% of jumps that you do that is immune to a total mal?

Not immune, but if you use BASE gear, are exceptionally paranoid about your static-line jumps, and don't put a pull-up cord or rubber-band around your pilotchute, the fatality list may indicate that short delay slider-down freefalls from low cliffs are the least dangerous jumps.

To me that is, from a technical point of view, somewhat surprising. Remember that there are still many skydivers out there that want to get into BASE but only so they can go to Norway and make "a skydive".

If anything, it shows that BASE is still by and large a human endeavor, with plenty of room for pilot error. Decrease the pilot time, and you decrease your risk exposure.

i always felt my terminal base jumps were more technical than low slider down jumps. my terminal base jumps with a low pull were by far the most technical.

for slider down, when you're low, your slow.

fair enough. However when you reduce your distance from an object, you also reduce the time you have to correct an issue...

If every jump from a tall cliff was done flat and stable like a static line jump, or if people treated a cliff as if it was only as tall as its first point of impact, then the numbers would probably be much different. I've never heard of anyone exiting on their back and then trying to out-track a ledge from a 400-foot cliff...

edit: my grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry...

Not just "still", but perhaps "increasingly", since the gear is getting better and better.

On a jump from what was once my local 600' E, I'd usually be thinking hard about the 180, about pilot chute hesitation... Jumping from the Potato Bridge or any of the Big Cliffs, people push their limits a little more. They suck their track down another tenth of a second. They exit skipping. They exit on their back. They try for more jumps in a day. They take a shot at a waterfall jump.

These people aren't generally being stupid -- that is, the risk is not usually grossly out of line -- but maybe they're behaving 250% as dangerously on a jump which still has 50% as much the objective hazard. It's enough.

WRONG. slider down cliff jumping is not safer, you are opening closer to the wall and thus more likely to hit it, and you are more likely to run out of altitude when trying to remedy a jump/opening gone wrong.

you may not be more likely to die because these walls may have less over all exposure, ie... wall strike may put you injured rather than dead, VS when you slam into a big wall and have meters upon meters to bounce and scrape down.

the numbers are deceiving you because the slider up stuff is most popular. the big walls are where the real fun lies and thus the biggest most accessable walls are the most popular, see the most jumps, and thus the most accidents.

low solid objects are dangerous as hell, just like the whole entire sport.

-uncle potato head

That's exactly my point. Technically, slider down cliffs ought to be more dangerous.

I'm well aware that tall cliffs are jumped more often, but not so much more that it would be the sole explanation for a 3 versus 80 percent difference.

I think base736 pointed out an additional reason why people die more often on slider up cliffs. We over-estimate how much bigger the safety margins on these jumps are, and increase our risk-exposure disproportionally.

You didnt say anything wrong..
All jumps has their kind of danger,we see higher death#s at slider ups as most people are doing them..

But would like to add..
One of the main reassons slider ups both are more popular but perhabs also slightly more dangerus is the fact that people tend to think that the extra atltitude makes it safer but forget to calculate in as they start pulling different kind of "stunts" off in the belive theyre safe up there..

Just a thourght..

I have no input to add, but have taken away a great sigline.

Thanks

Hmmm. Does the 3% include the dead Jaap PC pack job?


I think your underlying point, if I am reading it correctly, is very valid, and I'd restate it thus:

Jumpers approach safer jumps more recklessly, and that additional recklessness overcomes the added safety margin of most "safer" BASE jumps.



Another thing to factor in may be that, overall, the injury rate and the fatality rate are not consistent between different object types. Terminal walls, for example, might have a much higher number of fatalities per injury, while slider down cliffs may see a lot more serious injuries, with less likelihood of each incident resulting in a fatality.

Nor is the same type of accident likely to yield the same injury from a different object type. Freefall object strike has been shown to be survivable at Bridge Day, for example, but is pretty much a certain death sentence at terminal.

um, isnt that just about the only time where that can be survived? or has ever been survived? if on a terminal wall one was to catch a leg, or even a tip of the foot, i think it would be curtains.
edited to add, i mean if the foot was to clock a ledge in the first 4 seconds, not terminal. terminal would as you said be fatal.

Actually, no, but that wasn't my point.

Freefall object strike has been survived off low cliffs, other bridges and even in one case at a significant (slider up) subterminal delay off a tower.

damn,
you beat me to it.

I am not sure that Terminal BASE might have more technical info to know compared to No-slider. It just might be that things just happen at a much greater speed.
Speed and a Slider are only two more things though but those two things.
(Speed) - Low-pulls and or PC fumbles & low pulls sneek up on you faster when you are moving faster.
(Slider ) - Mals. like inconsistent opening speeds of Snivels and Line-twists.

PLUS. . The 'Simple' fact is, 'Big delays' just means you have much more time to Fuck yourself-up or to screw up royal .
Your under less/relaxed pressure to get the PC out on Big delay slider. On low no-slider your pulling the PC within 3-sec. on the average.
.

Congratulations, you win the prize for the most unlikely post title ever.

Woohoo! I'm a celebrity!

faber is celebrity
mor jump then you and me
your slider shoud he see
he tare up and on it
mak pee

200' is go and thro
or statik line
if it is mor lo

so hury up to 1000'
see how fast you get up ther
then take a look down below
wise man kno 200' is a go