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martwald

Fatality analysis

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To all prospective BASE jumpers & current jumpers. I've quit the sport due to an upcoming addition to my family, so here is something of little use to me which may be of use to you.

This is my own personal analysis of fatalities I used to refer to when I was considering what jumps I was comfortable with and what I could avoid to increase my chances of living. I am not going to include the backup to this as I am sure many people would disagree with my analysis of why some people died and I have no interest in getting into that debate.

Take it or leave it, it is only of marginal value without jump numbers relevant to the objects to add into the equation but it does give a bit of a picture of how you are most likely to run into problems + possibly what you could do to avoid them.

Like I said - take it or leave it.

To those who have lost love ones who I have "analysed" I apologise, the only purpose of this was to know where the greatest risk lay and therefore hopefully avoid them. If one person without the relevant experience stays away from a cliff as a result of this and therefore lives, then this wasn't time wasted.

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Hey Bro,

Just from the standpoint of what you've written maybe you won't make any jumps in the next few years, or maybe even the next five years, but you will always be a jumper, like a lot of us, until the day they bury you . . .

And, I think, before that, you'll be back . . .

NickD :)BASE 194

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I'd be interested in your assessments. For instance, what is a 3rd party error, or bad luck, or back to earth, or personal factor. Not criticizing your info, it would just help ensure I am not misinterpreting the data.

Thanks.

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For purposes of a scientific fatality analysis, bad luck should be re-named.
maybe...
"failure to react fast enough"
Even if it was impossible to do so.
but then i guess we end up sounding like the parachutist magazine incident reports. so nevermind.
'bad luck' it is.

-SPACE-

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Back to earth = they lost altitude awareness due to flying back to earth. There was a spate of these accidents over a two year period, very often combined with camera work.

3rd party error = someone else fucked up, i.e. PCA released too early.

Bad luck = this is the factor we all fear, where we have done everything correctly but the black death factor inherent in this high risk sport gets one up on us.

Personal factor = hard to explain but for example, one of the fatalities consists of a wingsuit flier trying to outfly a ledge which according to everyone else wasn't possible. This to me involves a personal factor which is avoidable. Another possible meaning here would be carelessness in packing which would not be in line with regular practice - for example - pulling the slider up on a packed rig to change from slider down to slider up jump.

You have to bear in mind that my personal views are inherent in this analysis. My view that personal factor is the primary causation of death (due to a gung-ho attitude for example, not judging just observing) may be strongly disputed by another party who may want to lable an outcropping strike as bad luck. Like I said it's just my analysis, if you'd rather (and if you BASE or intend doing so then I'd strongly advise you do) you should carry out your own analysis.

Then again, if it's your preference to go and lep off a cliff with no care as to the risks, who am I to tell you otherwise. This exercise suited me, it may not suit or be required by you.

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That's an interesting analysis...

It always struck me that spans were generally considered the safer type of jump, but your data indicates that ain't the case...

Does your analysis factor in the number of types of jumps going on? i.e. Are cliff jumps more prevalent and that's what is producing the majority?

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It always struck me that spans were generally considered the safer type of jump, but your data indicates that ain't the case...



....not sure that's true; more then 50% of the bridge fatalities were kit or packing problems.
"If you can keep your head when all around you have lost theirs, then you probably haven't understood the seriousness of the situation."
David Brent

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It always struck me that spans were generally considered the safer type of jump, but your data indicates that ain't the case...



A huge number of jumps are done from spans. Even with a much lower injury rate per jump, the total accident rate is going to be way up there.

Every object is different. Some spans are more dangerous, for example, than some buildings. But still, if you look at incidents per jump, I think that spans are the clear favorite for low injury.
-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

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I'm thinking that there are just a lot more span jumps being made.

I don't think you can determine much about the relative safety of different objects from this data. You would have to have a good idea how many jumps are being made total off each object. Better just to make note of what is killing people and try to avoid doing the same.

Edit: yeah, what Tom just said

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Am I the only one that can't get the spread sheet to work? I would be very interested in the info., but It comes up blank for me.

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Am I the only one that can't get the spread sheet to work? I would be very interested in the info., but It comes up blank for me.



Me too, does it not work on aMac?
"One flew East,and one flew West..............one flew over the cuckoo's nest"
"There's absolutely no excuse for the way I'm about to act"

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If you read my original post I do note that the data is only of marginal value without jump numbers from each object added into the equation.

I shall post a poll on the baseboard & here on % of jumps from each object and I'll add it in, this should add some value to it.

To those who can't get the spreadsheet to work, that's not very surprising as I haven't posted the spreadsheet, only a word document with a snapshot of the sheet.

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If you read my original post I do note that the data is only of marginal value without jump numbers from each object added into the equation.



Yeah, I wasn't trying to de-value what you have done here, but from the direction the thread was headed it seemed like someone needed to point that out.

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I shall post a poll on the baseboard & here on % of jumps from each object and I'll add it in, this should add some value to it.



I think that would be very informative, I would love to see the results of that.

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To those who can't get the spreadsheet to work, that's not very surprising as I haven't posted the spreadsheet, only a word document with a snapshot of the sheet.



I was trying to figure out where you had posted that at :D

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Am I the only one that can't get the spread sheet to work? I would be very interested in the info., but It comes up blank for me.



Me too, does it not work on aMac?



It's not a spreadsheet, so opening it in Excel isn't going to help if that's what you're doing.

It's a word doc with embedded pictures, so any machine with Microsoft Word should be able to open them just fine!

=)

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