Basejumper.com - archive

I had a cliff strike that resulted in a broken pelvis requiring surgery, a broken sacrum, and three broken transverse processes. I would say my biggest mistake was not getting a better/longer track. I hope sharing my incident can help someone else avoid one.

https://vimeo.com/50904395

Thanks to share!
I hope you will be at 100% soon!!!

what do you think accounted for the line twists?

I don't know. The pack job was good and my body position felt solid. I'm guessing it was a random occurrence.

Sorry you got hurt buddy

Which exit? What were you wearing?
Type of suit, boots, pads, helmet?

Thank you for sharing your incident.

Godspeed on a full recovery.

Low Ultimate, PF second gen, Protek helmet, no other protective equip. My head hit hard. There is a good chance that things would have been a lot worse had I not been wearing a helmet.

Thanks for the post.

Hope you heal up fast, that looked really nasty

Do you think opening lower would have helped?

Yes, I think continuing to track for a couple more seconds could have given me the time I needed to get turned around. I may have landed in trees, but that would likely have been safer than hitting the cliff.

which exit is that? la mousse!?

low ultimate

what happened to your track at 8 seconds on the vid.. i see your left hand came back in the frame ?

Man, that twist could not have been in a worse place. Sorry got hurt, thanks for sharing & I hope you heal fast!

I'm not exactly sure, but that was only three seconds into the freefall. I think I went a little head low on the exit, used my arms to straighten it out and for some reason only the left one made into frame.

At seven seconds your left hand briefly comes into frame again, thanks for posting the video.

Yes, but i don't actually launch till 4 seconds into the video, so 7 seconds into the video is 3 seconds of freefall.

Oh sure use math to confuse us!

The valley strikes again. The exact same thing happened not 10 days later in similar circumstances. Heal fast dude.

http://www.youtube.com/...mp;feature=endscreen

I'm thinking a pair of pants and jacket like this would be useful.

hard to tell in the video but were you trying to kick out of the twist or get above the twist to correct the heading?

heal fast bro.

I'm skeptical that a jacket like that would be useful even for its intended purpose. Note that the "Chest acceleration" graph is scaled deceptively -- being generous, the jacket reduces the acceleration from 21g to 18g.

I wanted to reach above, but the line twists were too high. I started kicking out and reaching up, but there was not enough time.

I think what would have helped the most would be to be better at base jumping. Sorry, everyone has been too helpful on this thread so far. Heal fast

First good answer
How (the f*ck) can people strike the wall at the ultimate ?!

I would ask to wear Tracking pantz, not protective gear !
Stop jumping with robocop suits, start tracking and pulling low enough to avoid wall strike ! you can do that even with a short pantz at the ultimate ...


Picture of a nice poumpoum tracking short pantz

By the way, heal fast and learn how to track & pull at right altitude as soon as you can

It doesn't make your arms any longer, but I've heard that it can be easier to reach above the line twists if the risers are squeezed together. To me it almost looks like you're trying to pull them apart?!

I expected some barraging and I can't say I don't deserve it. I'm more surprised that it took this long.


I was spreading them apart while it was still twisting, to try to stop it from twisting further, didn't work. I understand the logic, pushing the risers together causes the line twists to move lower on the lines. Unfortunately, that did not occur to me in the moment. That is something I need to practice doing so it'll come naturally, and obviously I need to practice tracking and not pulling too soon like a big pussy.

Heal fast. Glad you survived! Thanks for posting so we all can hopefully learn a little more about line twists.

Here is my take on it... let me know if anyone sees anything different.
You can see that the risers immediately after opening are very much uneven. The right side is several inches lower than the left. At this stage it seems you only had a half twist and the risers are starting to even out but It almost looks like you induced more twists by pulling on the right risers after opening and spinning around the left riser as the canopy dove slightly. The opening looked like it caused you to rag-doll a little thereby causing an uneven loading of the risers. Maybe if you had pulled the left risers and been a bit more solid and square in the harness you could have made it through this with only a single or half twist. Just a thought...

This is a strange question but has anyone ever tried to stop a line twist by spreading their arms and legs outwards?

If I think of an ice skater it makes sense to me. Tucking legs and arms in will accelerate the twist while they perform a static spin, throwing the limbs out and going into a star looking shape might help slow it down.

Has anyone ever tried this or tested if it will help at all?

ouch. that looks shitty buddy. glad you're ok, but that was an ugly jump.

Yes. That's how you prevent yourself from getting spun up in the first place. If you're already in line twist, spreading your limbs will slow or stop you from twisting more.

I would say your biggest mistake was to jump from this exitpoint. Maybee you shouldn´t have jumped in the valley at all!

Hope you heal up fast and 100% and thx for sharing.

This was my first thought, also. Not as drastic as not in the valley at all but I would say stick to the blue jumps such as the yellow side and nose #3 is a great place to hone your skills.

Heal fast and well!

I had planned on staying on the easy side longer, but I allowed myself to be convinced to go with some others that said I was ready. I had gotten a much better track on some previous jumps, but I had not dialed it in consistently.

I want to go back to that exit once I dial in my track a lot better and do the jump right.

Heal fast man! Thanx for cowboyin up and posting this so people can learn!

Thanks for posting. This appears to be similar to what happened to me in May. I struck the cliff at Dumpster and bust my pelvis, leg, arm n face.
Unfortunately cant remember what exactly happened to me but best guess is same as you.
All the best for the healing.

You are a fucking champ for posting the video.

Here's what I am seeing :

a) throughout the whole jump you seem to be compensating (flailing) with your left arm. So sounds liek from the get go your body really wanted to bank/roll left. I am betting you were compensating for your legs and are wearing a tracking suit.
b) On opening (when you are just being stood up), your POV is already skewed leftward
c) throughout your deployment your risers stay uneven, with the left one noticeably higher than your right
d) as your are starting to spin up, but before full pressurization, you are already pulling on the right risers, which only adds more power to your twist(s)
e) as you are twisted up and are nearing the rock, you try to reach above the twist, but instead end up pulling at the twist, which (obviously) does nothing). Perhaps "climbing" up the twist would have worked, but I see no attempt to pull up with the right, and reach above with the left. Again, just armchair quarterbacking :(
f) you make no attempt to try to use a toggle to steering "through" the linetwist. I have no idea if that would have worked, but the armchair quarterback in me thinks it may have been worth a try.

You didn't end up on the BFL, so that's good :)

The good news is you will be able to do so

As others have said, good on you for posting, I can't say I would have done the same

What does this mean? If it means releasing brakes and trying to steer, doesn't that have potential of trapping your brake lines?

I had a embarrassingly bad jump the other day and had 4-5 twists with a 90 left towards another building. I got my toggles before the twist and steered away but made sure to feel the pressure as I did so. It seemed to be fine for me. I didn't do a hard turn just in case the lines got trapped.

In the heat of the moment no one can be blamed for not reacting in the correct manner. The consequences are accepted by the jumper, and it's their choice.

Possibly, but most likely it will only lock your steering line only if the twists keep building.
He was already heading towards the wall - how much worse can it get :( ?

Again, I am just armchair quaterbacking. Who the fuck knows what I would do in similar situation...

pic from the exit point next to the one the incident happened at. Eerie similar..

I watched it (your jump) from the ground. Video pretty much looked how I thought it would. glad you came out ok.

How much did the rescue cost? And the hospital? looked like a lot of heli time with them refueling it down there and everything.

Those Air Glacier guys are good-

_justin

Paul, FWIW, i thought the same thing, i mentioned it on his facebook when i watched the vid.

seems like a good option to train for. i'd def take a tree landing over a cliff strike any day.

hello

what would be the procedure with the toggles,if you are already twisted,and you cant reach above the twist,and you are flying towards the cliff?

you release both of them,correct your heading with one side,and after that you compensate with the other one to stay onheading?and you wait for the trees?:)


thanks
laszlo

not sure, but personally i'd probably just grab one and pull it until i'm not headed towards something hard, then release the other one and continue to fix problems.

I don't know how much the rescue or the hospital cost, have yet to get a bill. I had 200,000 in travel insurance and I bought a Reaga membership. the hospital said the insurance guaranteed payment for the stay and the air ambulance I took home.


Yes they are, and they did a great job rescuing me.

Which insurance did you have? HCCMIS? Also how have they done with dealing with it. Were they good to deal with?

DAMN!

SHIT!

FUCK ME!

I am glad you didn't make the list! OUCH!

I hope you heal well and I hope you heal fast!

Yes, that is the insurance I had. The hospital dealt with them for the most part, I only actually spoke with them once. I was delayed on coming home for about a week after the doctor said I was ready to travel. The hospital said they were waiting on the insurance company to guaranty payment for the flight, and the Insurance company said they were waiting on paperwork from the hospital. That is the only problem I've had so far, and really it was a minor inconvenience since I was merely being transferred from one hospital to the next. The hospital said the insurance guaranteed payment, and I have not received a bill yet.

Interesting vid. This video should go in the BASE Beginners forum. If you get off F&S at Low Ultimate and track like that, then expect bad shit to happen. The signs at the exit points clearly state all the facts. You yourself said that you had not been consistent. RED FLAG. If you're not able to track to the river, deploy and have a long canopy ride then WTF. That's why people jump the shit out of YO and N3. If you are new to the sport use common fucking sense.
Again, interesting vid but fucking awful track. You friends were definitely not looking out for your best interests. Heal well and be in no rush to go back to LU until you can start making some serious horizontal ground.

I had the exact opening while jumping yellow ocean. I believe your canopy has a higher chance of opening 180* while deploying in a track.

I was lucky enough to turn it around in the nick of time to only have my feet walk on the wall, went through the trees and pounded in in the grassy talus, walking away with a bruised ego. Being in that situation, it's hard to make the appropriate decisions within a few seconds. Jumping more only helps that reaction time.

3:43 shows the opening.
https://vimeo.com/49325309

https://vimeo.com/49325309
WOW, all kinds of lucky on that one!! NOT calling anyone out in particular AT ALL, but the days of BASE/Rescue/hospital/flight home insurance is very near over. All these rescues and hospital visits are going to get really fucking expensive, soon. No blame, just what I think. Be safe folks..

I hadn't tracked hardly at all since I was filming a flip, so it was just a nice straight track only jump, like most of the rest of them. Bad luck comes to everyone sooner or later.....you get to find out how lucky you are. ;). Believe it or not my canopy never hit the wall on this one.

Your canopy has a much higher chance of opening into a 180 if you have poor body position. I always deploy in a full track with no problems at all.

Agreed.

I don't know if you remember but there were two brothers who sprinted up to your location after your crash. They comforted you, communicated with the ground/rescue services and helped expedite your extraction. I hope you will reach out to them if you haven't already.

So Rauk, pull in a full track, don't go boxman and then dump?

I retract my statement. I opened in a blazing track at Brento today and got owned by my Troll. Ill be slowing it up a bit before the next one, but nowhere near box man. No need.

Thank you sir'! The Wifey and just I got our shiny new tracksuits yesterday and seamingly trivial nuances from experienced jumpers about this stuff is what we're very into.

FWIW, i always recommend flaring out (& arching hard) out of a track. i do it in one fluid motion, no need to do AFF style track, boxman, reach & pull.

for me it's the difference between finishing the day with one jump after severe whiplash, and a joyous day full of buttery soft openings.

I always tend to reach and start to look where I am heading at pull time, which undoubtedly would change the AoA a bit. I do continue to track, though, and never go boxman or make any intentional adjustments to change my body position. I do try to max my track throughout. On the other hand if you have a steep AoA you will almost always have hard openings. My gf has had problems with exceptionally hard openings in the past and we have conluded that it is/was her angle of attack. She now goes boxman at or near pull time and it has remedied the situation.

yessir. steep aggressive tracks at pulltime will make it feel like your head is going to break off! i know how she felt...

Please forgive me if I am wrong, but isn't a somewhat recent fatality attributed to opening in a full track, and as a result, multiple line failure? I realize this is an over-simplification of the accident, and there are other circumstances involved which I don't care to get into out of respect to family and friends.

no. i don't think opening in a full track would ever cause a gear failure on its own. however, it may be a valid point to consider about wear and tear.

There was a lot more involved in the incident you are referring (if it is in fact the same one i am thinking). There was an overloading of the canopy and it was one of the lighter weight material canopies.

Please explain how a track may have caused the line failures?

How is it harder on gear if you are moving slower?

I think its just harder on the body because of the sudden change change in body position. Your gear doesn't know forward movement from vertical movement during deployment, only speed.

But in a track you are moving faster than in a boxman.
You have both a falling speed and a horizontal speed.

Use a GPS and you will see that your total speed is higher than a boxman

I had started rolling certain sections of my pack job, so I wouldn't get spanked as well. Sometimes, Shit just Happens, no matter who the heck you are or how good your body position is.

I finally made it back to Low Ultimate five years after my injury. I am still in no way a rock star tracker, but I am much better and it was a much safer jump than the dumb ass shit I did on my first jump off Low.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmNmKp7o9Ig

Landing in high grass?!?!

For the sake of learning, would it have made sense to push the risers together immediately to bring the twists down. Then reach up and deal with risers/toggles since they would be in reach now?