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Imagine you're jumping from a 35-story, 360' (110 meter) building. You don't have roof access, but find a comfortable exit from a large stairwell window on the 34th floor in the center of the building. This exit point is obviously not ideal, but the situation does have its advantages:

1) The exit is easily accessible and very comfortable.
2) The exit directly faces the landing zone.
3) There is no wind whatsoever.

Disadvantages:

1) Only 180 degrees of clearance in case of an off-heading.

While you admit the jump is very risky, considering the lack of winds you decide to take your chances and go ahead with the jump.

After an excellent launch and 1-second delay you pitch and WHAM...your canopy opens 180 degrees off-heading, with your body still facing away from the building. A second-and-a-half later, just as your body swings around and your hands reach the risers, you smack into the face of the building.

You find yourself in the following situation:

* 200 feet (60 meters) above the ground
* Hands on rear risers
* Canopy in contact with the face of the building
* Your legs against the face of the building
* You and canopy sliding down the face of the building towards the ground. In 7-8 seconds you'll hit the ground.

Let's further assume the following:

* Below you there are no sharp, pointy objects to impact. Just a flat cement sidewalk. No rebar, no construction equipment.
* Your canopy is vented and valved.
* The face of the building is smooth, with no snag points for you to grab or your canopy to catch on.

My question is the following:

Assuming this hairy situation, what would be the best course of action:

A) Continue to slide down the face of the building until impact with ground at mediocre rate of speed.
B) Pull down on both rear risers (possibly stalling the canopy and impacting the ground flying backwards at a high rate of speed)
C) Kick away from the building and try to turn away from the building using one rear riser.
D) Kick away from the building and try to turn away from the building using one toggle.
E) Scream out "Fuck, fuck, fuck!!!"
F) Wave to grandma on the 12th floor as you pass her window.
G) Other

My opinion is that option A combined with a great PLF would result in the least injury upon impact with the ground.

Do you agree/disagree? Why? Has anyone successfully turned away from a head-on impact with a sheer face at 60 meters or less? Did you have time to flare after turning away, or would it have been better to slide down the face all the way to the ground, and pray for a PLF to save you?

Your hands are already on the rear risers. Pull them down! When your canopy is stalling, let one riser go. Maybe you break your legs, but so what, you are not dead.
If you are already on the object, it will be very hard to turn the canopy with one riser or one toggle. I tried it and it did not work.
And sliding down the object by trusting your valves is very foolish in my opinion and I think not posible to do. Hopefully everybodys survival instinct kicks in as soon as you or your canopy touches an object and you will fight to get away from that thing.
My 2 cents based on 2 object strikes so far.
By the way, I try not to jump stuff that you will hit if you have a 180 anymore.

I agree with you that turning away from the object and landing is the best option, but only if you have enough altitude to execute such a move.

I've never tried to turn away from a building at 60 meters on rear risers, but my guess is that you wouldn't have time/altitude to pull it off, and would end up hitting the ground at a much higher rate of speed (and probably not going straight down, resulting in less of the impact being absorbed by your feet/legs).

Assuming the above is true, I'd much rather ride a building strike all the way down. You'll hit the ground hard, and probably break legs (if not much more), but if you're wearing a helmet you'll probably survive. If you're lucky and PLF well, you may walk away.

Of course, others' reasoning may be different, and I'd love to hear other opinions as to why they think I'm right/wrong. Specifically, does anyone have reason to believe that from 60 meters a jumper can, with a good level of certainty, turn away from an object on rear risers in time to get the canopy flying forward and have a softer impact?

Also, what are the dangers of just sliding down the building? Is the canopy likely to depressurize even with vents/valves? Is the canopy likely to tear catastrophically?

P.S. Mikki_ZH: Why do you think relying on vents/valves is a foolish choice? Do you think the canopy is likely to depressurize? Or do you think a jumper will impact the ground harder if just sliding down the building's face?

No, I think it is dangerous because if only a nail or some kind of sharp thing sticks out of the object and rips your canopy, you are in trouble. Or if your nose rolls in or something like that. But like I said, this is just my personal and very unexperienced opinion.

a truly scary situation.

option E and then try to orient parallel to the building face.

im probably going to start with E, B, then C, E again then perhaps D.. ending with A and F. in that order.


never give up.

if you remain sliding down facing the building and your canopy hooks onto anything it could collapse then tear and drop you. of the two strikes i have had one was really low and i ended up being able to do a 90 just in time to flare parallel to the wall on the risers with the brakes still set, a bruise on my arse and i limped away just fine.

my advice would be to keep flying and trying to find clear air until you touch down. assess and re-assess your options every moment you have. don't give up on a good landing until you're lying down bleeding.

Get on the rears and stay on the rears. In 60 meters a vtech or equivalent canopy already at line stretch is most likely going to re-inflate. That means you have a chance. As long as you have a chance, do something...just going for a ride is quitting...

You are an instigator...I am banning you for 6 hours...

I would impact the nearest window as hard as possible as to end up back inside the building, take the elevator down to the lobby, limp 5 blocks and bleed out on the sidewalk. Make sure to enjoy the jury trial.

Seriously though, I gotta side with Mikki ZH on the whole I just don't jump things that a 180 would be devestatingly unfixable idea......creepy topic. Of all the things I would hate to strike, for me it's a bridge. For some reason that one freaks me out the most.

My 2 :

At 360' I'd be taking a longer delay, as I feel that slider down 2-3 seconds yields the best on heading performance.

Also, why is this jump very risky ?

The canopy has zero horisontal speed. Do you think pulling risers / toggles in this situation can still be called a PLF?

You're right that the jump I described above isn't exactly "high risk" in the BASE world.

Still, due to the chance of an offheading, I consider it "risky". It's definitely not the NRGB.

Others will accept greater/lesser levels of risk.

if you already know you will be low why do you then go for your riseres?

go back grab your toogles,stall the canopy away and do a flat turnon your toogles,if your lucky you walk away if not you tryed somthing ;)

edit(toogles instead of risers;) )

that sounds very familiar...
~60m building
jump gone bad. very bad.
- vented parachute
- center cell split from rib to rib near attachment point
- A, B, & C attachment points torn from both sides of center cell
- being spun by line twists, watching building go by
- dropping like a stone
- "landed" ~5-7m from building, on concrete
- PLF and a helmet prevented significant injury
- walked away, in a VERY groggy state
- manufacturer stunned by damage (and that I walked through their door)

think things through BEFORE jumping.
keep fighting.
keep fighting.

Why not just dial in a round canopy for the jump?
As opposed to:
a. much rather ride a building strike all the way down.
b. You'll hit the ground hard, and probably break legs (if not much more),
c. but if you're wearing a helmet you'll probably survive.
d. would result in the least injury upon impact with the ground.
e. Maybe you break your legs, but so what, you are not dead.
f. If you're lucky and PLF well, you may walk away.
g. a truly scary situation
h. a bruise on my arse and i limped
i. you have a chance
j. if you’re lucky you walk away, if not you tried something ;)

A few of us notice a trend here.
In my opinion one should base one’s decision on whether one’s home has only a shower or bath. It’s difficult to take a shower with broken legs but a bath is cool.

My wish is that your skills in judgment will mature faster than your ability to find jumpable objects. The worst nasty objects are the ones near your home because they are always taunting you every day.
IMHO: for me, jumping slider off on a sheer solid object is about as attractive as a kick in the head. Unless it is very special.
Dial in your canopy, Dial in your skills before you need it. Then the answer to your question will be clear.
Take care,
space

More or less. The face was slightly underhung and concave (basically, a bowl that I was sliding down), and I was unable to turn on risers, and eventually gave it up at about 200 feet and switched to toggles, which got me off the face. I did not stand up the landing (pounded it in--I think I was pretty lucky to walk away).

I think 200ft is way too high to give up, but agree with you that inducing stall at less than 100ft can break more bones than just sliding down smooth wall under fully inflated vented canopy. I had a cliffstrike once and with the canopy loaded at 0.75 the vertical speed while sliding was, I think, ~20ft/s - an equivalent of jumping from 6-7ft.

My impression is that when the canopy hits the wall, it tends to stay glued to the wall due to Venturi effect: when you try to turn it or back it up, the escaping air between the nose and the wall lowers the pressure and makes the canopy fly into the wall again. It makes your inputs largely ineffective. I was lucky to hit a relatively smooth part of the cliff and was only able to turn around when I started sliding the 80-degree underhung part, which helped "unglue" the canopy from the wall. 99% luck. For a sense how much time and altitude was consumed while sliding down the wall, see the picture. ~100ft.

Thanks for the response.

What was your canopy doing during the descent? Was it persistently flying "into" the building? Or was it just a wad of tissue paper overhead, flapping in the wind?

From the fairly large collection of head-on strike videos I've seen (cliffs & buildings), when a jumper starts descending after a head-on object strike under a vented canopy, the descent rate is usually not very fast. Depending on the terrain below (jagged rocks, construction equipment, smooth cement, dirt, grass) the impact can produce anything from serious injury to just a sprained ankle.

Specifically, consider the cliff strikes in the beginning of 2nd BASE and in the renes_ongeluk video. In both cases the vertical descent was relatively slow. It's certainly fast enough to cause injury, but slow enough that in most cases if you're wearing a helmet you'll probably survive, and depending on what you land on you may walk away.

We recently had a local jumper impact a B very similar to the one I described in my first post. After a well-executed rollover from the 31st floor jumper experienced a 150-degree offheading. Jumper attempted to maneuver away from B on rear risers but didn't have time before impacting the wall. Impact with the wall spun him around several times, resulting in severe line twists which he fought to the ground. Impact occurred on a cement sidewalk under a partially inflated canopy.

Result: X-rays didn't show any fractures, but jumper could only stand in severe pain. Last I heard jumper is still recovering.

From reading the responses here, it seems like the consensus is that in case of any object strike, the jumper always should try to turn away from the object (at the very least get flying parallel to it). How best to do this, of course, depends on altitude. It seems like toggle inputs generally provide a better chance of turning away from the object than rear risers. Furthermore, rear risers shouldn't be used below 100 feet because they're likely to increase your rate of descent.

the canopy opened on heading and flew all of 5-7m away from the building. so, there was minimal forward drive.

mostly, the air seemed to be entering the vents and leaving the enormous hole in the upper skin. it acted just like a round, except I seemed to descend faster.

you can watch as many videos as you like, but so? every object is different. they each have unique obstacles. (heck, I had planned on landing on the beach. I made it half way there. foutunately, I spotted myself well between lightposts...) watch too many videos and you might get a false sense of confidence.

remember, you may find yourself in a situation you never foresaw... (I did.)

I once had the same experience. Tried to backriser away from the building I had hit but it didn't work, after 3-4 seconds I went for the toggles and had no problem turning the canopy. Old Fox, no vents, and was pretty much pressurized while sliding down the concrete.

/Micke
Team Bautasten of Sweden

What canopy was this, and also what was the manufacturers response to the damage?

as I'm a firm believer in acting responsibly, I'll claim user error. I'd rather take the blame for being an idiot than name the manufacturer.

I talked with the rep, underplayed it. shipped it out. later, I found myself nearby and decided to pick it up. they wanted to know all the details because they had NEVER seen such damage. they were very impressed to meet me. sometimes you get lucky...