How do you stop someone from basejumping

[skreamer 1]

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There is no rehab for BASE jumpers, only death.

Funny, I happened to end up having drinks with five BASE jumpers Wednesday evening - none of them seemed to have your melodramatic martyred outlook.

Will

[mre 0]

Tom,

I was puzzled by your reasoning here. Perhaps you could explain it a little bit further?

You write:

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I, as an experienced BASE jumper, feel that BASE is not worth the risk for something like 80% of the people who try it.

And then:

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My personal belief (in case you are wondering) is that no one, ever, ought to get into BASE

What about the 20% for whom the benefits outweigh the risks? Should they not be in BASE either? Is there, in your opinion, some other reason, beyond the benefit-risk calculation, that people should not do it? Perhaps the effect on other people, or the "addiction" part?

/ Martin

[outofit 0]

the best u can do is accept her decision and send her good vibes

It is better to be dead and cool than alive and uncool!

[TomAiello 25]

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What about the 20% for whom the benefits outweigh the risks? Should they not be in BASE either? Is there, in your opinion, some other reason, beyond the benefit-risk calculation, that people should not do it?

Let me clarify:

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I...feel that BASE is not worth the risk for something like 80% of the people who try it.

Is a reference to my feeling on what percentage of people are getting returns worthy of the risks they take.

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My personal belief (in case you are wondering) is that no one, ever, ought to get into BASE.

Is my stock response for someone considering BASE. Whenever someone asks me if I think they should try BASE, this is my response. Well, normally I just say "God, No!", but you get the idea.

Sure, that means that 20% of the people I advise not to start might actually, be better off, in the long run, if they did get into BASE. But perhaps I can convince a few to find a safer way to get what they need. Maybe they can find the same rewards, at lower risk, in rock climbing, surfing, kayaking, or inpatient psychotherapy (that last one is a feeble attempt at humor).

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[Zennie 0]

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Whenever someone asks me if I think they should try BASE, this is my response. Well, normally I just say "God, No!", but you get the idea.

Just to turn the question around a bit. If we could erase history, and you had never BASE jumped before, would you take it up now?

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Maybe they can find the same rewards, at lower risk, in rock climbing, surfing, kayaking...

I wonder if there's an actuary somewhere that has fatality/injury statistics per year, per... say... 100 participants.

I mean, how many times does the subject of "How dangerous is skydiving really?" come up?

All of those that you mentioned are actually quite dangerous, especially at the advanced levels. Same goes for skiing (which I'm doing in Feb., BTW ).

But to say one is more dangerous than another without numbers is sort of difficult.

- Z
"Always be yourself... unless you suck." - Joss Whedon

[TomAiello 25]

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Just to turn the question around a bit. If we could erase history, and you had never BASE jumped before, would you take it up now?

I don't know. I feel that the reward (for me) has been greater than the (rather high) personal cost.

If there were no such thing as BASE, maybe I would have found something else that could have given me the same, or similar, rewards, with a lower cost. That would probably be preferable.

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to say one is more dangerous than another without numbers is sort of difficult.

Definitely.

Still, it's my subjective, biased, personal opinion, based on three years of active BASE and seven years of active climbing, that BASE is more dangerous than climbing. I never saw, or knew, anyone who died climbing. The worst injury I saw was a broken ankle, and I probably only saw six injuries. BASE has been a little harsher than that.

There are obviously a lot of people experienced in both skydiving and BASE who feel that BASE is more dangerous than skydivng.

It's all anecdotal, "fuzzy" type evidence. But for all that, I'm willing to accept it.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com