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The jump was a 2-way from an object about the height of the potato bridge that the wind blows through. We had done 2-ways together from this object before, and we both have around 100 BASE jumps. The ground winds were around 15 mph, at about a 45 degree left quartering tailwind. The winds at the top were a little stronger. I had a difficult time hearing the other jumpers count over the wind noise. The first jumper exited and did a gainer, pulling at around 1.5 sec. I was designated low man, but I screwed up and left about a half-second after the first jumper. I waited until I was fully below the first jumper before I reached back to pull. I over delayed pulling at around 4 to 4.5 seconds. I believe it is around 5.5 seconds to impact.

I had a very short canopy ride, I think it was around 5 seconds. Due to some obstacles in the LZ to the left, I unstowed my toggles and initiated a hard right turn. A fence would have also prevented me from doing an immediate 180 degree turn at that low of an altitude. I then realized I was about to impact and leveled out the wing while flaring as much as I could. It was a dark, moonless night and I couldn't easily judge height above the ground. I was traveling very fast directly downwind, about 45 degrees to the right of my on heading opening. I believe the canopy was still in a dive from the turn when I hit. I also may have impacted a 4 foot deep ditch, landing initially on my right foot and then rolling for a good distance. I felt the ankle pop on the first impact. The other jumper helped me to the car and my ground crew drove me to the hospital.

The first jumper was using a Blackjack 280 loaded around 0.7, and I was using a borrowed Ace 260 loaded around 0.95, my usual gear is an Ace 280. We traded rigs due to the fact that I wanted to be low man and we figured high man should have the valved canopy. I had BASE jumped that Ace 260 rig before and had no problems landing it. I was wearing Crispi Airborne paragliding boots with excellent ankle protection, but the force of the impact was too severe. I was also wearing knee pads and a Pro-Tec helmet.

I made plenty of mistakes on this jump: screwing up the exit timing, pulling way too low, using an undersized canopy, and many more. My fibula is broken and tibia dislocated from the ankle socket ripping the ligament. It will soon require surgery and some hardware. It's currently in a temporary cast after the ER docs put me under to push the bones back into place. Depending on how the surgery goes, I might be back jumping in a couple of months. I'm at home now and doing fine, going back to the doc tomorrow. I'll try to respond to any questions as soon as I can. There was no video of the jump, but I'll try to post x-rays when I get them.

Glad you're alright dude.

Thanks, I'm sure it could of been a lot worse. I was really glad I was wearing my boots. I'm sure those at least kept all my bones in the skin.

You big dummy. Beer's on me next time I see you, get well soon.

get well soon

only loading a 260 at .95? I would have thought a lot more. Looks like ill be getting to do back to backs a lot over the next couple of months.

dude, glad your relatively OK. I'll get the round after Ficus. Heal fast and get back in the air.

Thanks for sharing this incident with us. I wish more people did. Heal soon, heal well!

Can you clarify on if that was a braked turn or not and if not do you think a braked turn could have helped at all for the circumstances you were in? Thanks.

How many jumps on the Ace and did it have CUS? My CUS Blackjack 220 loaded at .65 with around 150 jumps has an extremely quick recovery arc if I need to stab out of it.

I feel your pain though, I've hooked it in avoiding obstacles when it was so dark you couldn't see the ground. I'm lucky and around half your weight, so it was fairly easy to walk away from.

First, real glad you are okay man.

Second, very detailed and well written
description of the accident, thank you
for sharing it.

Third, enjoy the painkillers

That's about right. That would put his exit weight around 273.68421052631578947368421052632 ... give or take a .47368421052632.

Going low... altitude awareness

Pull
Pull on time
Pull on time stable
Try not to hit your freefalling friends

Hey Brian, the cliche goes, we all make mistakes. At least we're not trying to figure out what the dead guy did.

I was out of town but thanks for the invite.

my plane ride was about 16 hours. i knew you would find the rig in my closet. i also knew you wouldn't be able to resist. i'm sure glad you're ok. i thought you were joking when you sent me the email. beer and painkillers!

Stand in line, mofo!

It was not a braked turn, but it definitely should have been. I'll probably start doing one right after opening on my future jumps. My normal routine is open, go for toggles right away, and then yank one down if needed to turn into the wind. I've only jumped a valved canopy a few times, but it seems like on the Ace, if I get on the toggles quick enough it takes a few seconds before the canopy is pressurized enough to turn even after I yank down on one toggle. It also seems like a braked turn for me right after opening before the canopy is pressurized will put me into a stall. I've used braked turns before successfully when I had a longer canopy ride.

Due to the dark and the adrenaline from the messed up exit timing, I didn't really realize how low I was until after the turn. I'm pretty sure I stabbed both toggles at the point. I think I was more concerned with avoiding the other jumpers canopy in freefall and opening below him than opening at a high enough altitude.

I've been wanting to get a Black Jack 310 with CUS for a while now once I can afford it as a second rig.

A braked turn may have helped soften the vertical descent rate in the impact. I don't know if I could have turned into the wind and avoided obstacles, but a downwinder without the additional vertical and horizontal speed from the toggle hook turn might have prevented serious injury.

Thanks for pointing that out.

My Ace has around 100 jumps on it, and does not have CUS. My naked weight is currently 230, I added around 20 pounds for gear. I was about 198 pounds when I ordered the rig 2.5 years ago. It's great for jumping in high winds, but I need a bigger valved canopy for the sketchy jumps.

I do love the way the Ace flies. This injury was fully pilot error.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. I'll try to lose some more weight.

So you think avoiding freefall/canopy collisions is less important than pulling stable? I know it's less important than pulling on time.

I'm glad I'm still alive too. I should've given the count or at least thought and talked more about the exit timing. I pretty much brainlocked the entire jump. My 100th BASE jump went great, a nice slider down gainer. I also got to do a naked BASE jump last week to celebrate.

The surgery went well today, I just got home and am the proud owner of a plate and a few screws holding my fibula together. I have the heavy metal x-rays but I'll need to find a scanner before I can post them. I'll try to get the other x-rays too next time I see the doc in a few days. I'm supposed to stay home for 4 days but I'll doubt I'll last that long. I'm in a temporary cast for a few weeks and then I'll get a real one. The tibia and ankle is intact, and the doc said the tibia/ankle ligament that broke when I dislocated it should heal on it's own.

I've got crutches now, I'll get a walking cast in 2 months, and then probably get the hardware taken out in 3 months. Hopefully it won't be too much longer after that before I'm able to jump again.

I've got plenty of vicodin, and I'm drinking milk right now. I doubt I'll let the pain killers wear off for a while.

Thanks for all the calls, emails, PMs, and posts.

Ill verify the naked jump. He stood there on the top of the rail with his ass in my face for like 5 min "waiting for the wind" Just got back from my first solo, cant wait til youre back out there big B.

>>My normal routine is open, go for toggles right away<<

I hope you heal up well and as I also broke a tib/fib (but for different reasons) and know well what the long term effects can be, I'm going to offer some food for thought, and I'll do it as gently as I can.

I think you're glossing over the primary reason you're in plaster. I'd suggest it comes from being an automatic toggle grabber. This is not entirely your fault as there are certain mentors out there spawning toggle grabbers by the boatload.
I know this is pissing in the wind and won't get through to the toggle grabbing nation but if I can save one newer jumper from a lifetime of pain I'll take the chance.

Before I take you point by point through the rational the bottom line is leave the brakes stowed and use your rear risers to get yourself onto a safe heading. Once you do that anything else that goes wrong becomes manageable. In your case the second thing that went wrong was you were lower than planned. But at that point your canopy is already in a steady state. One you released that first toggle you lost that steady state. Now you had to release the other toggle and go for a "stabbed" toggle flare. Okay, now everyone in the room who knows "stabbing" the toggles does nothing but drill you into the ground harder please raise your hand – thank you- you can put your hands down now.

In your jump (and like most B.A.S.E. jumps) where you have limited options why in the world would you throw away options you do have without a thought?

Any modern and appropriately sized BASE canopy can be landed all day long with the brakes stowed using the rear risers to flare. We know this because we used to do it before there were appropriately sized BASE canopies. We did it with 220-ish sq. ft. skydiving canopies when that's all we had. And we did it without boots, helmets or pads of any kind.

In those days the situation arose because we didn't have reliable toggle systems. In our struggle to come up with a toggle that worked equally well slider up or down we jumped with a lot of very bad designs. The chance of a jammed toggle was an ever present danger, and it happened to almost every jumper sooner or later. So rear riser landings were almost common as it was deemed less dangerous than going for the toggles (that might jam) at a very low altitude.

We have, of course, better toggle systems these days and jammed toggles while not impossible are rare. But the underlying logic is still sound.

We have a generation of BASE jumpers who never flew a seven cell backwards in a full stall. It's just not something you'll do at the DZ these days. The same for stalled turns. Those two skills can be life savers. There are too hard and fast rules in this sport. Don't hit the thing you just jumped from, and don't hit the ground out of control. Going for the toggles before the risers backs you right into those two coffin corners.

In object avoidance using the rear risers will do three things. You'll start the turn faster, you'll turn flatter, and if you do hit a solid object you'll stand a better chance of staying inflated, or re-inflating with the brakes stowed. If you go hazy, or worse get knocked out, how do you want to take the rest of the ride? With the brakes stowed or not? How about being unconscious with one toggle released? Oh yeah, that's going to be fun!

Riser turns don't swing the load (you) out as much from under the canopy as toggle turns do. That swing adds to the impact force if you hit something in flight. I know there are people out there who argue that but they are, pardon the pun, flat wrong. You are always going faster with the brakes released and speed is what breaks bones.

Also being an automatic toggle grabber sets you up for another malfeasance. You feel an opening going off heading as you get pulled upright so you grab the opposite toggle without first realizing you have a line twist. I've seen that happen before and it's not pretty.

Now comes the insidious part. You can get away with toggle grabbing on a bridge jump almost all the time (unless like in you're case, you're low). So it becomes a habit. And there are nowadays jumpers who come to the hard objects after a goodly amount of bridge jumps. So one night on that first low jump from the Flatiron Building toggle grabbing bites you hard in the ass. In that vein - every soft object jump is really practice for every hard object jump.

So Brian, I'm not looking to get on you, and I'm not looking for an argument. But you now have nothing to do for a while except watch Gilligan's Island re-runs so I'm asking you to consider just a bit of what I've said above . . .

NickD
BASE 194

Hindsight is awalys 20/20.

This accident has nothing to do with toggles vs. risers, once again you are taking the opportunity to put down a "newer" jumper.

Had Brian made a brake turn instead of a banked turn he probably would have been OK and he is very well aware of this.

Going for the toggles as a first choice is IMO the best course of action for object avoidance and as far as landing goes, as long as you are in level flight you can PLF without flaring and probably be OK with the BASE canopies we are flying nowadays.

And you always go back to the new generation of jumpers...try to fly a x-braced loaded 2.0 + backwards, or stall the shit out it with rears and spin down like a broken helicopter...it takes a bit more balls and skills to do that than with a pig-ass canopy that could be used as a tandem tarp.

Risers turn are effective is there is some airspeed like in a slider up scenario. With properly tuned DBS going for risers might do absolutely nothing, yes in case of a 180 NickDG might stall the shit out of it, fly backwards, make a backward stalled turn, return to full flight, enjoy the view, pop the toggles, hook it, swoop, and rear riser the flare to get more distance...but for those with other than superhero skills, given the choice the toggles will always give you much more degrees of freedom.

milk, your drinking milk? take some calcium pills. and drink something with a bit more kick to it. like bourbon.

get well soon buddy,

nic

I really doubt it. Think about it... the winds are howling in the right direction and he took a long delay. There is no chance of object strike. 5s of canopy time is more than enough to land yourself on toggles.

Having done some sub-200 freefalls with an unvented 245, where I know up front that the canopy ride is going be minimal (~4s), I can tell you that going to toggle and doing a 180 to get back into the wind is totally doable/repeatable with a braked turn.

Heal up and practice those flat turns when you get back. :)

I agree with all posts saying Brian is a dumbass....that is all.

Oh why not... I agree too.

Thanks for the advice Nick, no need to be gentle. My jumping buddies confirmed how much of a dumbass I am.

I agree that going for rears without popping the toggles would have been better than what I did. I'm used to opening a little higher and I've never done a BASE jump lower than 300', and I've always jumped modern gear that I try to keep well maintained.

For object avoidance my primary means is normally risers, and I've avoided several object strikes after having a 180 or close enough to it by pulling down one or both rears right after opening. I've also used braked turns before successfully in BASE and skydiving, I just didn't do it on this last jump.

I've flown my BASE canopy backwards in a full stall on BASE jumps and skydives. I've also practiced lots of flat turns on BASE jumps and skydives. I've managed not to hit any objects yet, and I'll keep doing my best to avoid them.

I also agree that a braked turn right after opening would have been better than what I did. I don't really want to ever be that low again facing a hard downwind with obstacles around me, but if I am I will not pop both toggles, go to full flight, hook it in, and then panic stab right before impact. I will probably go for the braked turn. Just because your toggles are released doesn't mean you have to go to full flight.

Thanks for the long posts and I enjoy reading them. I read a lot more than I post here. I'll do my best to not fuck up again next time.

Yes you are, but it takes one to know one.


Not so true. Its a technicality, however you did a 290' with hookitt and me.

-nic

titanium x-rays attached.

I've got almost exactly the same thing in my right leg.

You'll always know when it's going to rain . . .

NickD
BASE 194