Basejumper.com - archive

A jumper(student?) injured his right lower extremity during an attempted beach landing. His canopy and container were still hanging in tree at west end of beach when I rolled up minutes after. He said he knew he broke something. TomA and students, along with Rich and his boat were present and facilitated the transport out of the canyon.

The Perrine Bridge is a great place for beginners to learn to jump, it has a huge main LZ and a large, very slow moving river. Before attempting to land on the beach, you should have your accuracy dialed in and understand how your canopy flies in varied conditions. When in doubt or trouble, head for the water!

It's a lot easier to dry your gear, than to fill out forms at the hospital.

was it an FJC course or some more advanced course

There was an FJC running but the injured jumper was not a part of the course.

There was a post that is now removed asking why "SRBA" is placing the target underneath some trees.

This is a valid question.

Was someone really that ignorant to place a target in a location that requires flight too close or through trees?

they answered that he wasn't a student of the fjc

Why are the long knives out for Tom A? Is he that big a jerk or is something else happening? Would someone please explain?

People who have a problem with Tom, don't know Tom. That's all there is to it. If you think you have a problem, reach out to him and just talk to him. Observe a course, not as a student and you will soon learn that all the bullshit out there is stemmed from little cunts drinking the coolaid of a few that for whatever reason do have a problem with him.

The post was made from a brand new account that belonged to a person who's primary account was banned permanently many years ago. It was new account with one post, apparently created as a throw away to make that post.

It's removal was related to the person creating multiple identities--not this specific question.


There was no target placed anywhere--the question was meant to stir up shit. I'm not sure what you'd describe as a "valid question" but I don't think that was it.

I try to stay out of this stuff as of recent for many reasons, even though I was drawn in by Tom himself claiming I'm one of the "primary actors" trying to defame him because if my "jealousy of his success with courses", which is completely untrue. That being said, your post compels me to respond. I've known Tom for well over a decade, we were friends, I know his wife and I've eaten dinner at his house. I don't agree at all with many of his decisions, at least as of recent. The flaming canopy thing was the deciding factor in me realizing that there was a grand disparity in my judgement versus his. I can't stand behind, or with, someone who would make such a foolish decision in our sport at one of the most exposed locations we frequent. My decisions for my feelings are not based upon anything personal, but purely "professional" if you will. I think there are a lot of very valid reasons for the way people feel nowadays about Tom and his antics and I feel that there are A LOT of very respectable jumpers that feel this way for these reasons. Anyway, this is about all I care to say about this but I felt as though your post is completely misrepresented and unfair in a lot of ways, for a lot of reasons.
Cheers,
Adam Foster

What the fuck does that long ass post have to do with the incident or topic? What does THIS post have to do with it?

?

Was this jumper a previous student of SRBA?
How many BASE jumps? Number of jumps on that specific canopy?
Any skydives? (totally valid ? regarding SRBA)

Just a normal statistical accident?

Hope it wasn't anything super serious and the jumper heals up quick.

Also,
I don't drink coolaid. I make informed decisions from researching/observing, (basically normal data collection techniques) on the topic. Yes, someone's previous actions come into play when assessing said person. I could start listing the last few fatalities and easily draw a direct correlation to SRBA. Not a result mind you, a correlation. But enough strong correlations will eventually provide one with significant evidence to support that decision. When enough information and data suggest that they are incompetent, they are deemed incompetent.

If you notice the post I was replying to maybe it would make more sense? Geez...

This guy (marcopoko) is one of those respected jumpers I speak of by the way.

So you wanna talk about correlation? You're on here talking shit about Tom and you just happen to run an FJC? That's a correlation right?

What's the purpose of talking to someone who's disparaged many, many jumpers (kind of a revolving door, really) over the past decade-plus on minor issues, despite his own piss-poor judgement and multiple injuries in his first years?

What's the purpose of talking to someone who's racking up one of the most significant injury and bodycounts of any school out there and doesn't own up for his mistakes to the point of not promptly calling 911 and trying to cover up an accident?

What's the purpose of talking to someone who routinely takes VOLUMES of low and even NO skydive jumpers into a BASE FJC?

What's the purpose of talking to that person who grandstands on the deaths of others on jumps he was not on to market his business in mainstream media?

What's the purpose of talking to that person when you've seen so many jumpers try the same before you over the past decade and the behavior never changes? Really. What purpose does that serve?

Spend a few years in. Might be a "vocal minority" as some have said, but the key word there is "vocal". Most people know it.

Wasted breath talking to Tom. But spend a bit of time here and spread the word a bit and you might actually save some fucking lives and direct them to real, qualified instructors.

I don't know a ton of base jumpers, but I know a bunch that have broken appendages on landing. At bridge day the trees are covered in canopies and an award is given to the guy that maims himself the worst but manages to stay alive.

How is this an "incident"? Is this forum going to grow by two pages every bridge day now?

Fair comparison. SRBA low and no-skydive BASE FJC students are a perfect parallel to Bridge Day carnival skydivers into a tight LZ.

 

Get Tom to stop Tomming and it'll stop.

It's true.

I hope every sends good vibes to the injured jumper for a speedy recovery.

Going forward many would appreciate seeing just statistic, objective opinions and valid questions in this area of the site. It may save my pale butt one day.

Even beyond bridge day. People fuck up landings. It happens. This isn't skydiving, you're (most likely...) not landing on someone's neatly cut four consecutive football fields. You catch a bad gust and hit a rock or tree, you just might break yourself. It's not bowling. You want bowling - stick to bowling.

There was a fatality with information you could learn from today. Instead we're talking about some random dude at Potato bridge that hit a tree and broke his leg. And "big bad evil Tom" (who doesn't appear to have anything to do with anything except the rescue effort).

Seriously?

Send me your address and I'll send you new kneepads. Your SRBA ones seem to be worn through and have reached their end of life.

Going forward many would appreciate seeing just statistic, objective opinions and valid questions in this area of the site

Like your first post?

I'll take my pair, you know where I live, just drop them off...

You know what makes me sad, that I lost a few friends giving Tom some respect over the last year. Oh well. But yet again we have a new bash Tom thread. I thought finally this was put to bed.

Collin, that night we were at happy hour and had a productive conversation but a jumper pretty much told me my opinion was worthless (and made it clear that he had no respect for me as a person anymore because of the conversation I had with you), made me think a lot about this issue and community.

Here are my thoughts:

I was once told that there are the things people fear, and there are the things that kill, and rarely are they the same.

An example being the often cited example that vending machines kill more people than sharks, yet who runs away from a vending machine screaming for their life? And that there are more human bites than shark bites every year filed with the police, but who walks down the street of NYC fearful that there will be a human lurking at the next intersection ready to bite? Or, who panics and runs away screaming when they see a BigMac when heart disease is a leading cause of death, not bee stings. We as humans fear the sensational causes of death, where everyday causes of death are just accepted as normal. Why don't we fear the things that are most likely to kill us or a friend????

Wing suit proximity deaths = every day, thus ignored. A burning canopy = sensational. Both show equal bad judgment by the community and participating jumpers, but did we bash the friends of the last proxy death pilot for not cutting the jumpers legs straps before the jump to stop them from jumping?

Back to that conversation at happy hour. I saw the same passion there you continue to post online here... But, what is killing your friends in mass, and my friends in mass? It is not Tom, it is wing suit proximity flights and the GoPro. When I started in BASE, wing suit base was active, but we all talked about how wingsuiting made you safer as there were no wing suit fatalities as they got you farther from the wall and over open ground. Ponder that, people died when they were not wearing a wingsuit. I believe at the time of my first base jump there had yet to be a single wing suit death. Ponder that. Even if there was one, it was extremely rare.

But then we watched YouTube and GoPro video rise. When I started base, we had to share our videos on sites like this with links to downloads on the server skydivingmovies.com. The phrase viral video was not yet invented... Downloading full size videos to watch had a higher cost of entry than the modern googling of a word popping up a video on a smart phone. And our b&w BlackBerries would not play them.

People back then pushed the limits, but it was their personal limits, and survival was high.

But the GoPro changed that. I remember seeing the first real impressive ScottyBob proximity flight on YouTube and thinking, this can't be survivable in the long run. It went viral, both in our community, but also with non-jumpers.

Other jumpers saw what could be done, either on YouTube or live from the exit point, and suddenly there became a challenge in the community to fly the best line, and cross-reference it to other videos, with the facebook like button being pressed a lot after every jump.

I might be permanently or temporarily retired from jumping, and if that means people want to discredit my opinion and friendship, as they did at table that night at the bar, so be it. But I can never retire from watching friends die, so I believe I have the right to an opinion.

When Dean died, I pulled out some video of us "back in the day", some of his first ever base jumps... Tom was actually in some of those videos giving advice to the then novice Dean, but I see no correlation in his eventual death.

It is not Tom that is to fear in modern base. Yes, there was one real bad and real public fatality he was directly involved in, and that sucks. But the dozens of friends we have lost have nothing to do with Tom, and everything to do with a new unsurvivable trend in wing suit base proximity flying with the GoPro and YouTube being a proximate cause for people pushing their limits.

If our friends would put as much energy into fighting this fight and disowning friends who push the limits of proximity as they do disowning people who defend Tom, we would have a lot less funerals to attend or "blue skies" facebook posts.

It's not a personal attack if it's carpet-bombing the whole room.

You're all a bunch of whiny fuckin high school girls and I hate your faces.

PK makes everyone feel that way if they let him. Ball slap him after he thinks he's made a good point and take his drink while he's down. Works every time.

Dickbags.

You need real jobs that suck your soul and make you bitter. Keeps you off the interwebs spreading your idiotic tin-hat bullshit about a sport 99.999% of the world give zero fucks about.

Raise your hand if you think you're important...

Put that shit down and shut the fuck up. Dumbass.

I feel sad for you. Honestly.

It must take a lot of time and energy to hate someone so much. Especially when you see zero results stemming from your smear campaign. Tom's courses grow and grow while you kill brain cells all red faced with rage on these forums. Imagine how you could have used that time and energy in a different, more positive, manner. What a waste.

The reality is that Tom teaches more students than anyone. So it stands to reason that his students will appear more frequently in the incident threads. Do his students appear in the incident threads in disproportionate numbers? I don't know. And neither do you. Unless we have accurate data on all FJC student numbers and all incidents then we're just grasping at straws. There's no way to know how the FJCs rank in terms of safety from a statistical perspective.

Nobody's judgement is perfect 100% of the time. Get off your high horse and go live your life. It's a better way to live, I promise.

Feel sad all you want. I'm over here laughing.

I'm glad you're having fun.

Oh, and by the way:


Nobody "grandstands on the deaths of others" more than you. To forward your same tired agenda, over and over, and over again.

This is my last post on the topic lest we chase each others tails here. Feel free to have the last word.

I feel offended.

Catch a bad gust? What are you a newspaper reporter? Why are you umping if it's so gusty you can't deal with it?

this is not in reply to anything.
but this thread made me wonder.
the jumper that got injured was not a student, yet somehow FJC got pulled into it.
I got a question for all the FJC guys out there - when was the last time you refused a student due to jump numbers? Do you routinely seek out a reference?
Lets face it, there are enough FJC's that if you person refuses the student, likely they will find another that will take them.

Perrine has a great landing area, and if I remember right, wasn't the beach once considered the primary LZ? what better place then there to practice a realitively small LZ in broad daylight? poor judgement will happen to students and experienced jumpers.

Not sure where I am going with this, but damn this thread drifted.

+1

Thanks for the post.

-1 I never really got this statement.

Unfortunately I have witnessed many fatalities, some first hand, including two of my very good friends, where the drive to make great video caused them to do something that was so far outside of their normal character, they died trying. So while you might not get it, I remember the last thing a person said to me minutes before death... So I do get it. Your experience might be different. To each their own.

"the GoPro and YouTube being a proximate cause for people pushing their limits."


LOL... and what is the 'proximate cause' of trying to get great video?

Getting great girls.

Seriously, BOYS, how many women dies trying to get great video?

So I fix it for you tdog:

"the GoPro and YouTube girls being a proximate cause for people boys pushing their limits."

I bet wasatchrider get this statement!

#158. I bet there were or will be more.

GoPro: "there's no point dying for a POV of Yellow Ocean cause no one gives a shit."

You're an idiot

what a massively ignorant statement, by a seemingly ignorant person

you will say differently after you reach puberty.

will you say differently after you reach menopause, or have you done that already?
with your post history i'd say youre smack in the middle of it.

Who is this ScottyBob-person you speak of? I have never heard of him!

Scotty bobs a wannabe wingsuit pilot that flys weak lines and is scared to fly near terrain.

Is he friends with this JebCorliss-person?

Nah jeb is the real deal, he actually flys close enough to hit shit.