Lesson in complacency
So just giving a quick heads up to newbs and peeps with experience. This was uneventful, but a real lesson to me without gettin sliced by the reaper. As i started climbing over the rail at perrine this weekend, with canopy in hand for a TARD, my buddy stopped me because my chest strap was undone. Not loose, but completely unrouted. It was a TARD so i most likely would have been fine but i was working on 3 second delays all weekend, so god for id this was a belly jump this could have ended everyones fun this weekend.
Lessons learned:
Just because i am at the 70-ish jump marker, and have mostly cliffs under me belt and am feeling like i can finally start to call myself a base jumper, DO NOT stray for your routines and gear checks.
If youre doing things out of the norm like unpacked jumps, CHECK CHECK triple check everything like your life depends on it cause it does
If you leave your packjob to go pick up jumpers like i did, dont let that be such a major distraction
The funny thing is, in skydiving i check my shit like 6 times from pre-board to pre-exit, why would BASE be different? You should be even more OCD. Such a simple and stupid mistake shouldnt happen, and will NEVER happen to me again. The fact was that i stowed my lines all nice, went to pick up some jumpers, came back, and harnessed up, and was more focused on keeping my lines in the tailpocket for the tard and barely climbing into my harness than i was focused on safety. Thankfully this was none entful, but a real bitch slap to me. Please stay focused and dont be complacent!!!!!
Flame away if you feel the need