Basejumper.com - archive

http://www.youtube.com/...ed&v=V51oXkjBDR0

How much do you suppose the Gran Hotel Bali charges for a bucket of room service ice and a tourniquet? Maria Steinmayr's leap in the BASE Jump Extreme World Championship in Benidorm, Spain, took an ugly turn when her parachute opened the wrong way and she was slammed into the building. She eventually found a landing spot on the 10th-floor balcony of a room where the guests had helpfully left the sliding door unlocked. A British couple down the hall heard her banging on doors for help and tended to her many cuts until medics arrived. The worst of it for the Austrian jumper: a broken nose. Oh, and that her helmet cam ran out of batteries and didn't capture the adventure.

Of course, this could have ended much worse. Glad she is OK, sort of.

Ninja moves

+1 for the ninja moves She could have eaten lunch from the time the canopy opened until she hit the building and still had time to turn it around.

Anyone else notice the forward speed on opening? Shallow or factory DBS perhaps? Kinda looked to me like the canopy wasn't dialed in for her.

Thoughts?

Yep.




Only a small percentage of BASE jumpers ever customize their brake settings for themselves.


Lots of things could have prevented this strike--properly customized DBS, better reactions at opening (to stabilize her body to prevent spinning up into twists), better reactions post opening (climbing above and turning the canopy first rather than trying to clear the twists), etc.

This was really an avoidable incident. Glad it turned out reasonably well with minor injuries.


I don't know what this jumper's experience level was (so this is a general, not specific comment), but I've encountered european jumpers with substantial slider up experience who are totally unprepared to jump solid, slider down objects. This is one reason why simple jump numbers are a poor indicator of a jumper's readiness for some objects (like cliffs in Moab, or slider down buildings, for example).

Also, a running exit would have been a better choice than the poised exit.

This just backs up the point that everyone jumping solid slider down objects should take the time to set their custom deep breaks FIRST. In my opinion, besides learning to exit stable with a running exit or poised exit, setting your custom deep breaks is one of the most important things you can do to stack to odds in your favor for solid slider down objects. Don't be Stupid out there and think you're too good...Just do it.

. Yes if one didnt try to short step the edge and had a perfect exit. Which could be doubtful.
take care,
space

There's actually a very large and sturdy ramp there for this event that is great for running exits.

Watching the video - (most of this part is out of frame) - I don't know if she could have. It looks like she was still spinning up until about 3 seconds before strike, and on strike when the video comes back into frame, her body (both legs) don't appear to be in the body position of someone trying to kick out of twists, but instead her feet look a bit "ball and chain" in front of her, somewhat "on her back" as if the canopy was untwisting on its own. Could she have reached up and stopped that and grabbed the correct line to turn in less than 3 seconds?

If she had gotten her hands between the risers at opening, it's possible she could have stabilized her body to prevent (or at least reduce) the twists in the first place.

you have no idea how not prepared are for example french people for jumping hard solid objects SD, 99 % of them dont even know about tuned dbs and deep brakes approches. i am so glad there are not big fans of SD jumps. Maria is jumping her troll 245 mdv with standard factory settings.