The day we almost died
I am expanding from another thread because I feel there is a story to be told here. I was in my last year of Architecture last year and just really fed up of it all. I was getting a bit sick of the theory and frankly my state of mind was showing in my designs. On a Friday afternoon I went home in tears after having one of the worst crit sessions of my life. I walked home and on my way out of the University, threw my model and drawings in the bin.
The next morning I went to visit an Architect friend of mine whom I had worked for in my internship year. We had a long conversation and she pretty much just told me to go for what makes me happy.
It was the end of the first term and we had a week's holiday. I was just sitting at home getting all depressed.
Out of the blue, on the Tuesday, my buddy Jean-Marc the catapult man calls me:
"You'll never believe where I am.... I am in Cape Town working with some other french guys on this movie; 10000 BC. Was just wondering if you would like to give us a hand here, we're kind of understaffed."
To me it was like a sign and I jumped on it. For the next while I worked with him on the pit trap set which you will see if you watch the movie after its release.
We were kind of a strange couple. He was everything I am not and yet we got on like a house on fire. In his twenties, Jean-marc had been in the Amazon forest and lived with the natives, had worked in a circus and had been a military paratrooper. He was a revolutionary at heart and admired people such as the Che and Fidel. He also lived in Venezuela for a while, searching for diamonds he claimed... He was atheist and I like to think I am Christian and it was a fact we both accepted about each other and never argued. After his first trip here, he returned to France, married a cuban prostitute and realised his dream of catapulting himself. He was an absolute mad man.
The catapult was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life. He sent me the dvd and after I watched it, I couldn't stop laughing for 15 minutes straight.
He confessed later that after the catapult he got to hang out with some of the french big guns and ended up doing jumps that were way out of his league. But he survived.
He also told me about Jurij; the russian guy who had joined the french foreign legion. Jurij had died on a wingsuit jump. The guy was a legend. One of their buddies had injured himself on landing in the verdon gorge. Jurij put the guy on his back and ran out of the gorge...
I was really impressed when I learnt Jurij's father came from Russia for his son's funeral. He did a BASE jump from the gorge in honor of his son.
So here we were, working on this pit trap 6 days a week, 12 hours a day minimum and no jumps whatsoever. We decided that was it and we needed to jump. Being uncurrent, we opted to go to the bridge about 4 hours away and figured if we paid for diesel it would be ok to take the company rental vehicle.
Woke up early on Sunday morning and drove off. Jean-Marc didn't trust himself in this country where everyone drives on the wrong side of the road so I ended up doing all the driving. I was very tired and having him fast asleep next to me wasn't helping either.
After almost passing out a couple of times, I finally got us to the bridge. before we knew it, we were kitted up and doing our first jump. The bungee guys hadn't started operating on the other brige and there was very little traffic on the bridge we usually jump. The only sound to be heard that early in the morning was the cracking of our deploying canopies. Awesome!
There was a bit of water at the bottom so we couldn't go our usual route and had to find an alternative on the other side. That took us a bit of time.
For the second jump I was the only one to pack since jean-Marc had decided he wanted to do his fist roll over. None of us had done one before and the only info I had was the write up (very complete I must say) 980 had Emailed me a week or so before. I took camera on this one and you can clearly see how nervous and shaky he was at the exit. Nevertheless, he executed it perfectly and bungee operators and bungee jumpers watched two mad men high five, cheer and laugh for about 10 minutes after that... That was cool!
Then, this is where it gets dodgy. I think our bodies had taken a toll with the work and we seriously needed a rest but we were so pumped on adrenaline and ignoring the signs.
Where I almost died is after packing. I close the container and JM says: "Hey what's that?" Only three clamps on the matt and this thing bulging on the side of my container... I should have stopped and called it a day. Instead, I opened the container and just took the clamp out.
JM's near death is a bit of a longer story. At the time, #100 was coming up on the BASE Fatalities List and we had been talking about it. Jean-Marc always claimed to be the inventor of the double snap SL system. Personnally I think that if there is an engineering problem, it makes sense many people could come up with the same solution simultaneously around the world. Any way, he wanted to do a Static Line with his system.
As mentioned, we were both very tired. The wind had picked up from the back and I opted not to take camera on this one since it was a top mount and I was doing a go and throw. On the exit, JM asks if everything looks good. I am already standing to the side on the concrete rail ready to jump staright after him. Seriously, at this bridge, what on earth could go wrong? A quick glance and I say: "Ouais, c'est bon."
And he is off and time just suddenly slows down. I get taken back to the place in my mind where I was when my sister died or when my wife (she is a nurse) and I stopped to assist at the scene of a horrific accident on the highway and this dude just died in her arms. It's a place where pictures get engraved into your memory forever and no matter how much you drink or how many drugs you do, you just can't erase them.
What I saw was a bridle wrapped around Jean-Marc's leg and jean-Marc turned towards me with an expression of utter despair on his face. He was going in and he knew it. He was going in and I knew it and the only words I recall going through my head then were: "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."
Somehow, and probably thanks to his SL system (and not my insulation tape system...), the canopy came out of the container and deployed. With his legs still half wrapped around the risers, JM landed in the water, completely unharmed. Still in shock, I hesitated a few seconds then jumped. When you freefall this place, it's 8 seconds max take off to landing. In that time I had an on-heading deployment, turned 180 towards Jean-Marc and landed on the shoreline.
Again, the bugee operators, bungee jumpers and spectators watched these two idiots, one completely soaked, high five and laugh their heads off so much that they could hardly stand for another ten minutes.
Incidently, the 100th fatality at the time was a static line in Bresil, and that really freaked us out.
Man I miss Jean-Marc.