Basejumper.com - archive

Well guys I thought it was a blast! Jason and the other organizers did and outstanding job. The weather could have not been better. What a day! I managed three jumps and not a bruise. All five of us got home happy and safe. I think it was a good promotion for the troubled BASE community.

Well feel free to add comments and the number of jumps you made.

Did any major incidents occur?

Mainstream media tells us that there was no more than a couple ankle fractures.

Bridge day was awesome! Sorry I didn't get to meet everyone, Tom was a great wealth of information and it was great to finally meet Robert from Birdman and see the new suit :)

There was a broken leg, and some broken ankles.. nothing 'major' I made some great jumps !

Kevin

yeah, bridge day was so awesome. i can't believe that i only met 1 from the whole list of who was going. where was everyone friday and saturday night? i was running around the holiday inn bar with a snow hat on and a sunflower. yeah, i was pretty drunk, but who wasn't? i am definately going to make my first base jump from the new river bridge next bridge day. i just need lots more skydives! i got some really sweet pics of people's exits cause i was right by the entrance gate to the platform the entire day. so if you did something really sweet, i probly have a pic of it. i know that i got a shot of zennie and brits exit, but didnt know it was them until later today! anyhow, post more stories please. i had the best weekend of my life!!! i love base jumpers:)

-836 jumps made this year (745 last year)
-Jumping started at 9:00:05 am
-Approx. 400 jumpers (includes staff)
-Three exit points (16' diving board, traditional ramps, railing exit)
-More train holds than I can remember
-4 jumpers were transported to the hospital, all were released by Sunday (if not Sat night). 2 ankle breaks, 1 lower leg fracture, and 1 vertebrae injury.
-All injuries were landing related. Winds were light and variable, often forcing crosswind landings.
-3 "Roll Over" jumps were performed, including several from the diving board.
-The BDC reports up to 200,000 spectators.
-Weather was sunny and in the lower 60's.
-We are working on an amazing, new exit platform for next year that would include an elevator that lifts jumpers to a platform 35' above the bridge, holding two large jumbotron screens and live camera feeds.

The bottom line is that it was an amazing Bridge Day that ran smoothly and had little, if any, lines for registration.

One minor problem at the Saturday night party......I had a signed contract with Red Bull that promised free Red Bull/Vodka and beer to all jumpers. The Red Bull/Vodka was never provided and the beer didn't last as long as we would have wanted. I apologize to the jumpers who missed out on this and we are working with Red Bull to see how they are going to fix this breach.

Thanks to all jumpers who attended. For those of you who made your 1st BASE jump yesterday, welcome to our amazing sport. Cya next year.

Check out these pics:
http://www.bridgeday.info/_temp/IMG_3262a.JPG
http://www.bridgeday.info/_temp/IMG_3733a.JPG
http://www.bridgeday.info/_temp/IMG_3921a.JPG
http://www.bridgeday.info/_temp/IMG_4136a.JPG

Photos captured by Whitewater Photography (the crew in the basket) are online at http://www.leisuresportsphoto.com/...rch&showall=true

i wanna go back to wv!

Yeah, BD2003 was awesome. I made 3 jumps, ( first being my first ) - I even jumped my own packjobs :)

thanks for putting on a kickass event, I will definately do my best to be back next year.

Paul.

Bridge Day 2003 was the freakin' bomb. What a boogie! The whole event was run without a flaw, in my opinion. Registration was a no-stress event. Once again, the Holiday Inn was very accomodating and put up with a lot of our crap. I met so many cool peeps and learned so much about the best sport in the world. I decided that I'm buying my own base gear now. I want to go and take a real FJC and learn the right way. I only made one jump because I had to whore gear, but I stayed dry and unscathed. Thanks to all the freakin' cool staff that helped make our day the sweetest. (thanks Bruce, Jason, Sporto, Mark, Cindy, and all). You guys rock!!!!!!! See you next year!

     I had a Great time at Bridge Day!!!!!!!!!!!

The weather was unbelievable! No one could have asked for better weather.

Thank you for the updated Statistics. It is always good to get the actual. I heard there were more injuries than that. I am happy that everyone is in good condition and nothing serious happened.

I made two jumps. One landing on land and the other landing in water on purpose because I did not like what the winds were doing. I believe that the water was colder than 56 though. Especially for a Florida Guy!

I was there with LadySkydiver. We were looking for dz.commers but I guess the crowd was just too big. We did catch up with a couple.

The hardest thing was the drive up from Florida. It took longer than I had planned and my body is paying me back for it.

Laters,

KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I only bumped into a few folks myself. Looks like the Friday thing sort of fizzled, but I think everyone was doing the same thing... running around all over the place. I know I was.

BD 2003 was a total blast! Got 3 off the bridge. Got to see a lot of friends again. Got to meet some other folks who I've gotten to know online but never met in person. All in all just a wonderful, great time!

Already looking forward to BD 2004.

You met me. I'm not sure if you identified me as a DZ.commer or not, though (it took someone else who I met last year until this year to do so).

I met a lot of people throughout the weekend, but not sure if some were dz.commers. Tom I met you briefly in the Conference Room on Saturday night. I saw your Mr.Bill on the bridge too, that was sick! Bridge Day was such a blast I can't wait for next year!

Chrissy

I went to a snowboarding contest last year (audience... nowhere near a competitor). There were 26 professional competitors. There were 3 ambulance rides. Two broken legs and a serious skull fracture. It says something...

To the ones injured, god speed in your recovery. Is there any details regarding the injured? i.e., Experience of jumper? gear used Skydiving v. BASE specific? Protective gear used (if any) by injured? Just curious,
nic

At least two of the injuries came from the "World's Worst Ever 9 Way" jump. I'm pretty sure they were relatively experienced (i.e. well over 100 jumps) jumpers using BASE specific gear, and at least helmets and knee pads. The problems on the jump seemed to come from the separation plan, and the fact that so many people wanted to use the same landing area at the same time.

I was just watching, though, so my knowledge of the specifics is somewhat hazy.

bridge day was a freekin blast! I made my first jumps there and WOW. I am going to buy base gear for sure now. I have so much to learn. I couldn't believe the things people were doing off the bridge!
I just want to say the BASE community rocks and I will see everyone in '04!

Well I know one of the injuries was a fractured heel because it happened to my friend. He was making his second jump of the day (and second BASE jump ever) and tried to stand up the landing in the LZ. He was using BASE-specific gear (Fox 245 in a GS Vision). Don't know what kind of shoes/boots he was wearing.

I know my first landing pounded on my feet enough for me to decide to roll out everything the rest of the day. And I was wearing Han Wag paragliding boots.

that mr. bill was tom? i got a few shots of it i think!! hell yeah! that was sweet!!! my friends were the only ones that did a rodeo there:)

Worlds worst 9-way!!!! I resemble that remark.

Actually the “way” itself was planned fine...but there was a break down in communication during the count down which resulted in a less than simultaneous launch and contributed to the separation problems that caused the spontaneous CRW… but give credit to AB for clearing a multi-bridal entanglement quickly and efficiently which could have been disastrous.

The landing injury was to a jumper who had the cleanest approach to the LZ but "slipped" on one of those ankle breakers and had a freakish break in two places as a result of what looked to be a soft landing. That was the only "official" injury on the load...my heel injury was not reported until much later in the day and could of happened on any jump.

The worst 9-way ever? Well… it was definitely the worst 9-way of the day (because it was the only one.) but by that token it was also the most incredible 9-way.

Thanks to Jason Bell for putting on a great event. Once again all his hard work and tireless effort made BD03 a huge success. Lots of great jumps, great parties, and much fun had by all. Special congrats to all the first time BASE jumpers...the world will definitely look differently from this point forward!

Play safe,

Donk
donk@kc.rr.com

Just curious if you could elaborate on this a bit more, please? I've often wondered if the multi ever causes problems....

I had a great time! Made 3 jumps, 1 w/ Zennie, and no H2O landings ran into Kramer and LadySkydiver. Kevin i believe i saw you but am just now realizing where i recognized you from.

Skydiving teammate Nick was one of the ones who shattered his heel (see ted's post)... So we were down to 1 driver for the 24 hour road trip back! Lol, I'm pretty delirious right about now. Great pictures, great video, can't wait again till next year!

whith out knowing it,i will guess that some one might caught a mulibridel by a leg or so... if not,i also would like to know what happened

It looked like the multi on a lower jumpers canopy became entangled with the leg of a higher jumper. I believe he had to let go of his toggles to unwrap the multi from his leg.

I wonder if the multi might be a good CRW tool, to help hold those difficult docks together.

The multi-bridle attachment issue was as follows:

Jumper #1's leg got tangled with Jumper #2's multi attachment point in a CReW-like fashion. Jumper #2's canopy collapses and it appeared as if all the weight of jumper #2 was hanging on Jumper #1's foot. Jumper #1 drops his line-mod toggles and clears the multi entanglement. Jumper #2 then falls about 20-30 feet down until her canopy reinflated.

Both jumpers dealt with the problem very well. Congrats to both of them.

I was never a big fan of the multi before this, and now several jumper's concerns regarding the "catch points" of the multi are justified.

Yes, a standard bridle would have slipped clean, but the multi bridle grabbed me like an octopus. I had a longer canopy extraction than normal, which put me low next to another jumper on the load. I flew over her canopy, but the octopus reached out and grabbed me, would not let go. I ditched my toggles, and untangled the beast, which was fully wrapped around both of my legs. The jumper with the multi went on about her business, and landed without incident. I was left with a decision..... and had a dry, injury free rear riser landing. 2 inch flare on my Mojo 260. Thank you Consolidated Rigging. Lisa will be throwing away the multi, and replacing with a standard bridle.

Just poking fun at friends. Besides, it was Jason that made up that term, not me.

So you're saying that even on a solo, the multi provides more of a possibility for entanglement with an object, should you hit it?

i got a pic of you and zennies exit! i will post when i get my pics back!

> ...but the multi bridle grabbed me like an octopus.
Yes, I can imagine.

> Lisa will be throwing away the multi, and replacing with a standard bridle.
Well, this is a very personal opinion and moreover biased on what happened, basically connected to the type of jump (multi way).
In my 100+ jumps with Multi I never experienced ANY sort of problem connected with Multi, in fact, I would say that Multi helps so much in having cleaner deployments, slider off (including SL) and slider up.
Of course, if you do a particular/stange sort of jump (like a multi way), it is true that Multi does create a potential problem for entanglement if "anything" is envisaged to come in closeness with top surface of parachute: in fact, in this case it would be higly advisable to remove Multi.
But it seems unfair passing from an (entanglement) problem experienced in a particular jump to remove Multi for ALL successive jumps.
I think it is not wise to get rid of a component, useful in 100% of your jumps, because in 1% of your jumps it could become a problem for entanglement.
Just because the 1% of "strange" jumps is known in advance what sort of "strangeness" it is going to be, it would be way more "right" to remove Multi, or any other standard/non-standard component, just for that particular jump, and re-install it for all the other "routine" jumps.
Just my 0.02€

Pictures: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?

Edit: Or this one?

I'm not familiar with BASE gear so maybe it's something else, but that girl's container looks like a Vector to me... (?)

Kind of hard to tell, but I believe it was this one, because I know the person that dropped from Tom had a H2O round on and that rig looks small.

That jumper in that picture had a very low round opening. ~15 ft.? I watched from the landing area after my last jump. Almost 3:00?

Josh

Skydive gear is alowed at BD,how ever there are some rules to follow.

That totally freaked me out to watch. I'm glad he is okay.

Does anyone know what happened with the guy who had the spinning malfunction? He looked fine - glad he landed in the water - but what went wrong? I never did hear.

From the video on Sat night, looked like line twists + tension knot. He missed the big boulder by a foot or so ... He was sitting in the room during the video, and said he is fine ...

That is one lucky dude.

That's the one. The round is a Phantom 22 in a custom Perigee-W pin rig (it belongs to me). That jump was the Alabamaway--it encompassed 2/3rds of the active Alabama jumping community.

I was one of the injured folks. I feel bad for being one of the negative stats for this AMAZING event, sorry guys!!!
Mine is a fractured heel, and I know there was one other guy there (Hope you heal soon, John!) who had the same injury. Mine was the result of a crosswind landing that wasn't handled well. I missed the call about swirling winds coz of 2 video cameras in my face, and when it came down to it I screwed up by not PLFing and reaching out with my left foot, which came down hard on one of the larger, flat rocks near the waters edge, which was very unforgiving! Still waiting to get the MRI scan to show the full damage, but I'm out of jumping for a while, for sure! But the 2 jumps I got in (my first 2 BASE jumps) were something that I will never forget, an amazing experience.
FYI - I was jumping a Vision with a Fox 225 (I weigh about 170 nekid, so slightly on the small side), so no probs with the equipment, the problem was no PLF.......a bigger canopy may have helped, but I doubt it.
A BIG thanks to everyone who helped me post-damage, the ground crew in the LZ were all fantastic.
Cheers!!!

FYI - protective gear worn included helmet, knee pads and high-top safety boots. I hate to think what my foot and leg would look like if I had been wearing tennis shoes!!!

Heal quick, brother! Don't worry about being a negative stat....I was there myself in 1997.

On a similar subject, I was informed of one incident where a jumper probably saved his own life by simply wearing a helmet. I saw the marks in his black helmet and he wouldn't be walking and talking today if he wasn't wearing one. I believe he hit his head on some rocks during landing.

I also saw a jumper come in hot into the LZ, downwind, and deep. The jumper took two steps and hit his head on the back of the NPS cherrypicker truck. He hit the truck at approximately 15-20mph and it sounded like someone smashed the rear of the truck with a sledgehammer. The jumper immediately flew up in the air and landed on his back with a large gash between his eyes. He might have been OK if he were WEARING A HELMET. Fortunately, he was not transported to the hospital. The image of this jumper hitting that cherrypicker will stay with me for life.

HELMETS ARE A GOOD THING. WEAR THEM!

So what happened? You say he wasn't OK, but he didn't get transported to the hospital. Dead? Or walked away and went home with a gash?

He clearly had a gash between his eyes and was hauled away on a backboard. But, miraculously, he rose from the backboard, they bandaged him up, and he walked away.

I'm not sure if he received stitches or not. Anyone else know?

Thanks to Jason and all the volunteers for the smoothest Bridge Day I've ever attended. Absolutely no complaints whatsoever. Though I had a staff pass, I never even needed it because the line moved so fast. After working from 9:00- 11:00 am. at the exit point, I still got 3 really fun jumps and got to watch a bunch of my Carolina friends make their first base jumps. Two things that I liked the most were 1). The videos that the official video crew shot are great. Especially the really cool exit angle taken from the ground. Really glad that they said it would not be a boogie video, but a technical video.(exactly what I wanted).
2). The line monitors down at the buses were worth their weight in gold. In the past, I've seen more people almost get injured fighting over a seat on the bus than landing in the rocky d.z. With the line monitors, everyone was calm and cool knowing that there would be no breaking in line.
Jason Bell and Vertical Visions ROCK!!!!!

Base-Rigger
Tony Herring Base-516

I just tallked to him, he said he's fine and didn't need any stitches.

heres a few pics i just scanned. i dont have time tonight to scan more, but i will soon!

a few more cause i dont feel like studying!

Just wanted to echo my thanks to all involved, I had a blast!! My highlights included my first Bridge Day jump, first diving board jump, but mostly watching the gleam in all the first timers eyes! I really enjoyed working the exit point from 9-11, thanks JASON!!!! It was a pleasure to meet everyone, wish I could've met more dot commers, maybe next time.
Even after Bridge Day the festivities continued as I was able to make a couple of jumps off some local objects with some VERY nice folks who are in the manufacturing side of the BASE industry, you know who you are and thanks again for visiting the Carolinas, come back anytime.
Looking forward to seeing ALL of you real soon at an exit point near you.
Later
Blair

Hi All!

I was watching from the top on the "carnage 9-way" and saw one jumper's foot entangled with the multi lines of the parachute immediately below him. He kicked and kicked and finally freed his foot. I did not recall seeing him having to use his hand to clear the entanglement; I saw him kick it off, but I was watching the foot and the lines, not the hands.

Basic Research has stated from the onset of the Multi Bridle Attachment that entanglement issues are increased with the addition of this feature on your canopy. It typically wouldn't be a problem because we try to achieve vertical separation during deployment, but in this case sufficient separation was not reached, and the foot stuck right in the thick of the Multi lines. My comment was "well, there is one good reason to not have Multi..." I've only been around a couple of years, but have seen hundreds of jumps from the top, and have never seen this occur before. The only other problem I know of with the multi was a jumper that had too large of bites on the multi stows in the pack job, which then caused a deployment hesitation. For those of you asking about Multi problems, these are the only two that I know of.

The solutions are simple:

If you have a FOX or FLiK equipped with multi, and you're planning a big way jump, it might be in your best interest to disconnect the Multi Lines from their rings and attach your bridle to the front center cell bridle attachment ring. This removes any possibility of Multi line entanglement in case your deployment altitudes get jacked up for any reason.

When using your Multi, make sure to use half a black band for each stow, using 4 total, and make sure that the bites on the Multi sheath are less than half an inch. The stows are there to keep the lines in the proper place in the rig, they are NOT there to stage the deployment! You can even S-fold the sheath in the top of the rig and not even use the stows, if you have a mind to.

I'm guessing that the Multi feature has peformed perfectly on thousands of jumps, with only 2 problems reported to date, with no injuries involved.

Good job on the jumpers keeping their heads, clearing the problem, and landing safely. That must have been a heart-pounder for the two of them!

Bridge Day 2004 was awesome, the jumps were OH! so sweet, and I can't wait for next year. Thanks to Jason and Jennifer and all the staff! Bridge Day is an absolute blast, and if you haven't been to one, you better get there next year!

Be safe, have fun, and soft landings to all!


Peace,
Karen
BR

Hell yeah. That was nasty to watch. Ugh.

Joe

If i rember correct he already told his story here,and i guess you missed somthing(his hands)

Jumping 100% on your leg again?

What's the story behind the picture titled, paraplegic

Is the guy being "AFF'd" really paralysed?

yes he is, he did an AFF base at last years Bridge Day too....I think with the same base jumpers assistance.

I talked to him after, and I think he said he had about 250 skydives (and a few BASE jumps?? not sure) before getting paralyzed in a biking accident a couple years ago.

Joe

Russell is an amazing guy. He also paraglides quite a bit from what he's told me. He's probably in the air more than many us. Good luck to him.

The AFF jump was powerful. There are some seriously good people in this sport, willing to put themselves on the line to share such an experience. I was thrilled to see that jump. Thank you to those involved.

Can anyone explain the technicalities of the jump? I see the "student" has a pilot chute in his hand. I'm guessing it was a go and throw. As the student is being extracted, one of the "instructors" deploys? I'm guessing he's packed slider up just in case? Is the second instructor staying with it after the student is extracted or does he start tracking? What sort of delays were the instructors doing? Would the "instructors" care to be identified to me (via PM)? I'd like to ask them a few questions. Thanks

One of the "instructors" on that jump taught me how to pack, I emailed him and told him to check this thread out - maybe he'll post some answers to your questions.

He is the same guy who did it last year as well

Kevin

I was on the platfform when he jumped....awesome and inspiring. My first bridge day in 10 years...had a blast and now I have to spend a bunch of money on new base gear. Retired the skydiving gear after the third jump. Only 51 weeks to go!

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Jason and Jennifer Bell for organizing Bridge Day for a second year. Bridge Day ran smoother than IÕve ever seen it. Jason is definitely the right man for this job. Bill Bird also plays a big part and is a backbone to the event. I enjoyed being a staff leader for Jason again and need to thank the 12 people on my exit point crew. They are:

Marcia Brandes
Jason Kennon
Dave Funcheon
Johny Ò9livesÓ Anderson
Paul Kohnke
David Lirette
Danny Koon
Anthony ÒDonkÓ DiCola
Yuri Kuznetsov
Sergey Kuznetsov
Mark Kissner ÒTreeÓ
Kevin McGuire

My hat goes off to all you guys!!

I also saw a change in attitude with the park rangers, more so this year than last year. It seems that they are growing to be our friends, and vise versa. It has always been a dream of mine to stand with others in humility, yet truth, before the congressmen and senators of our country and make a solid case as to why this community should be given a second chance, and allowed access to our great cliffs in this land. As time goes on and we learn from our mistakes, more and more people realize BASE jumping is not a sport of crazy people, but a sport of beauty and freedom.

Have fun, donÕt die,
Johnny Utah Winkelkotter

Bridge day was great. Many thanks to Jason and Jen and all the volunteers and staff who made it happen. Also thanks to everyone who has already placed their order for the video. We tried the new angle from the ground up to the exit point with a huge lense not knowing how it would turn out... and it turned out great. We got lots of compliments on the video we showed saturday night from that perspective. Burrito Rodriguez did a fabulous job on that camera all day.

Thanks to the entire video crew, it was a huge success and Ed couldn't have done this without you and your sweet cameras. We had 6 continuous cameras and additional footage. There were at least 3 cameras on the exit point for the entire 6 hours, 1 from the basket, 1 from the top of the bridge, and the one from the ground looking up. Cajones also did other perspectives of the exit with the Swain Cam. There were at least 2 cameras on the ground to catch all the landings. If you landed in the main area, we got it. We really think we covered ourselves with redundancy, and we've tried to do it in such a way that it is easy to edit to meet our goal of finishing around xmas time.

On a personal note, Tom, great meeting you again... sorry i didn't make the connection the first time! Alana, good to see you, we still need to jump. To the spinning mal guy, (sorry i'm bad with names), we are all glad you missed that great big rock!!! We have the entire jump from at least 3 angles. To everyone, sorry we didn't get to be more social... work took a lot of time. Thanks for all the orders we've received already.

Big thanks to Consolidated Rigging, Inc.!!

Peace
lew

Just for reference, I weigh 260#..
We hope to do a better job next year, I'll make sure we have a CB radio so we can track the busses a bit better and load them heavier/lighter as need be. I may try setting up a PA speaker down at the packing area to let everybody know when a bus is on it's way so any lollygaggers can get a move on and get in another jump.

When Bill asked us to do this.. he had us primed for a real headache, talking about edgy adreneline pumped jumpers... thought we'd need straight jackets. That didn't pan out... everybody was very nice and we had no problems to speak of.

None of us goons.. I mean line monitors ;-) are jumpers. But it was fun and I think you'll see the same faces next year! (Well, at least my ugly mug).

Great Time, Ready for next year, you guys rock the house...

i made a discovery this weekend and it made me want to ask this question...
does this attachment mean anything to anyone that was at the holiday inn bar during bridge day weekend?

Any photos of the Mr Bill landing????

... that is of the round canopy getting full inflation (I think) just before water impact?

My only photos are attached. From a 70 mm lens, point and shoot camera at the landing area.

The first shows the separation of the two jumpers. The second shows the beginning of inflation. Unfortunately the water is not seen, but the bottom of the photo is pretty much the horizontal plane, judging from the trees. I'm guessing about 100' height with the canopy just starting to inflate. The jumper looks well head down too. Quite the rush.

Thanks to Jason Bell and the other organizers & volunteers -- it was a great Bridge Day.

Peter Chapman

your photos are attached to what ?

who'd you make the other two jumps with?

I can see your still the jealous one. My, how some things never change...............