Basejumper.com - archive

I busted my Tib/Fib on my 96th jump tonight.

hey man, sorry about that. I hope you recover quickly.

tib-fib sucks to break.

take my advice, buy an indoor R/C helicopter. they are freaking amazing entertainment.

and why was nickdg right?

Stitch,

Glad its not worse. So when did you send me that text message? Before your GC took you to the hospital or after?

Hope you heal fast & fully!!

So what happened dude?
Land on a midget hooker?

I hope your swoop was at least 200' otherwise you don't have my sympathy!

Buy a bag of good green...and find a hobby. I became a rigger when I was all broken up.

hope you heal quickly!


that sounds like a plan..

Nick just used to say that back in the day, hardly any jumpers made it to 100 jumps w/o getting busted up.

I think he used the word "plaster"

Stitch,

My "Plaster Drama" came on #98 so I "almost" made it too.

But, I can tell you the hardest BASE jump you'll ever make, and also the most rewarding, will be the very next one!

Heal good!

NickD
BASE 194

hey... mine was #98 too!!!

No truer words have ever been spoken IMHO
The first one back will be as, if not more rewarding, than the first one you made

Now it's payback time........you need to get your ass over to the house tonight and bring some movies. Beans will be at work.

>>hey... mine was #98 too!!!<<

I hate to throw a monkey wrench into all this cool and groovy "plaster love" going on - but does anyone see what I see?
My original quote was from an early issue of The Fixed Object Journal probably around 1989. I said, "No one gets to one hundred BASE jumps without a major plaster drama."

And that was true at the time. But over the next ten years it became untrue. And many jumpers made it past that point without a mishap. This was a time we first had dedicated BASE gear and techniques, we shared knowledge and sites without limit or restraint. It was a time when there weren't enough of us to cause too much damage to the sport. And nobody, or at least not many, who just started skydiving did so with their eye on BASE jumping, because generally they didn’t know it even existed.

So with all the advancement in gear and everything else, are we now going backwards?

I suppose it's natural that, given the tools, people are going to push on the edges of what's possible. But looking not so much at the reasons for fatalities over the last few years, but just looking at the rate they occur, it's easy to see something is wrong.

I'm not entirely sure what it is but, those who know me know for twenty years I've been preaching that we just slow down a little bit. Don’t be so damn cock-sure of yourself. In 1986 when I was launching off AM towers with a Racer and my skydiving canopy packed in a deployment bag no one could have told me I didn't know what I was doing. I always keep that lesson in mind when I climb out now with my G-whiz latest BASE setup.

On a "fairly" recent trip to the Potato Bridge I was to meet up with the "Pick" and Jaybird for a planned old way three way. We all arrived at different times and had already made some jumps solo. When we finally got it together and walked out with our gear, there were about a dozen jumpers in line and we stood and watched them fiddling around until we looked at each other and thought, fuck it, let's just go drink some beer.

The time I spent with those two "giants" of the sport, recalling old times, and old friends I'll remember more than any three way we could have made. My point is the jumps you don’t make can be as important as the ones you do make.

NickD
BASE 194

agreed. I finally managed to break mine. Is it worth spending over 40 bucks for the ones with some more directional control or do they break too easily. That 40 dollar model was a trooper!

1989 = injury because of experimentation

2007 = injury because of stupidity... I'll be the first to admit I shouldn't have made the jump I did.


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Stitch, I'm gonna wait until you can put some clothes on to come and watch movies man... I mean.... It's not that I don't like seeing your ass hang out of them pretty hospital gowns... but... uh... I don't!!

Nick, you may not remember, but I told you at your place at the Perris Ghetto in 1991 that I would be an exception to the 'broken by 100 jumps curse'.
Since that time I plan and execute every jump I make with that statement in mind.
I'm WAAAAAAY past 100 now, and have been very lucky.

If you, The Pick and I had managed to get our 3 way jump off of The Tater, it would have represented more than 50 years of BASE experience...Let's wait a couple more years and make it 60 years instead.

BASE359

Welcome to the club Andrew! I've got one of those admissions too - albeit from a hookturn - but an identical admission all the same. See ya this weekend.


That's a nugget if I ever heard one!

Since this is the incidents forum and all, do you have any details as to the why, what, where, how, etc? Anything to learn?

Heal fast man... Make Andrew watch movies with ya, even if he does not want to see your butt hanging out of the hospital gowns....

Not really, this was just your basic no-wind hard landing accident. It could justa as easily happened skydiving. I think a factor may have been starting my flare a little late. I just can't believe it happened in the big landing area at the potato.

Andrew brought a DVD, Black Christmas over last night. It was bizarre.

oh no! you didn't!?

you should see the x-rays of his leg dude... it looks like he jumped of the bridge without a parachute, and landed feet first...

pictures??

That sucks. Hope it wasn't too bad and you heal fast.

naw dude... I tried to snap a shot with my cell phone, but the screen was too bright.

They are doing surgery next Wednesday. The leg is still too swollen to do it this week.
They are going to put a steel-rod full length through my Tibula. Then I'll be like Wolverine.

Is it Tib/fib season? in the past few months i can think of 5 jumpers that i know of having this break. all for various reasons but all jumping.

get well soon.

Going through security checkpoints will never be the same again...

I made it to my 101st BASE jump before breaking my fibula 6 weeks ago. I should get the cast off in 2 days.

Hopefully you'll feel a little better after the surgery and the swelling goes down.

My girlfriend also got a titanium rod through her tibia from a bad skydiving landing 3 weeks ago. She never had to get a plaster cast, but she now has one of those knee high boots with velcro straps on it .

Perhaps we should start a forum for broken jumpers where we share bathing techniques and good movies to watch.

I hope you heal well.

Actually, in our cases, I've thought it might be the curse of our July the 13th birthdates.

1st it was Lonnie, then you, and now me.

Hey Man
I look at it as July 13th birthdates are a blessing. Probably would have been worse if we were born on some other shitty day of the month

You guys will all be weatherman now . . .

It's going to rain in California tomorrow, the iron in my leg tells me so . . .

NickD
BASE 194

How long after the cast comes off until you get back out there? I haven't jumped since early September at the Perrine Bridge Festival.

No wind landings can suck.

i hear that, I can call the exact time when the pressure drops every day. metal sucks.

What size canopy were you using to break your fibula?

There is something wrong with that concept, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is.

UPDATE: I made it through surgery last week OK, more or less. The Anitheisologist never could get a response from any of the nerves he wanted to block, so I woke up in extreme pain and had to stay overnight. The charge-nurse said I pressed the "need-release" button on the Moriphine IV, 71 times in 2 hours.

Went to see the Doc yesterday, he said everything looked peachy. They removed the splint/cast, removed 69 staples, and put me in a hard-cast for the next 3 weeks. The after surgery X-rays look like something out of a Frankenstien movie.

sounds slightly worse than my quad-wisdom tooth removal with slight complications....

Glad you made it through ok.

Le Roy

So post the X-rays!

I'm still waiting on the Radiology lab to give me a disc. As soon as they do, I'll post them.

I called them right after I posted this, and they said I could pick-up copies next week when I see the Doc again.

I'm glad you made it through surgery alright. The pain should go down in time.

I had a splint for two weeks after the injury/surgery, then I've been in a hard cast for the last two months. They put a fresh hard cast on me a few weeks ago. Hopefully I'll get a removable boot after my next checkup. I'm still not supposed to put weight on it, and try not to, but I can if I have to.

69 staples seems like a lot. I didn't count but I think they pulled about 20 out of my leg.