the other jumper. adam's jump

[fozchek 0]

I have been working on an appropriately objective report on the incident for the last week now. I realized something, though: that is not what I need right now. This is way too raw and real and life altering for me to try to 'step back' from it. I will complete the other eventually, if even just for myself, but for now, I really just need to let people now just how badly I fucked up that day. Sorry if it comes out a bit choppy, but quite frankly, it's a bit choppy in my head right now, too.

I make no excuses, so please don't read any of this as such. I only want to take responsibility for my own role in the events that transpired.

I was so excited to get to go down to Southern Mexico to jump a 3000 ft wall. The night after I arrived, we all had a safety briefing in regards to the jump. We were told this was a tracking cliff essentially, and that we should all take it easy. The day jumping was to begin, we all headed over to the landing area, which as has been stated previously was tight, but entirely doable. Really the only issue any of us really had regarding landing was the crocodiles, which were plentiful. Prior to jumping, we did not see any in the landing area, however, on the boat ride back to the van that was to take us to the exit point, we spotted 11 crocodiles. The fear was palpable among us. BASE is full on enough without having to worry about crocs.

We took the van up to the viewing area which was adjacent to the exit point. We checked out the cliff from there, and some of us decided to head out to the exit point. Some stayed behind to watch others complete a jump before they did. All the while we all nervously joked about the crocs waiting for us below. It is almost humourous to me now that we were ever worried about crocs.

Once by the exit point (the exit point was not to actually be seen until just about to jump, as it necessitated a 8 foot climb down), we all hung out for a bit, waiting for windblades to be put up, and ropes to be lowered down to the exit point. We were told that the launch direction was simply towards the landing area and that it was a 6 second rock drop. As we were milling about, I was scared out of my wits. Hindsight is of course 20/20, and I should have just backed down from the jump, because I think the lurking voice in the back of my head was telling me that it was beyond my experience level. It was. I was capable, but not ready for something of that magnitude.

Adam and I decided between 10-15 minutes before we left that we were going to do a 2-way. Right before the first jumper left, we heard over the radio that there was a crocodile in the landing area. We all nervously laughed and dismissed it as a joke. The first jumper did a nice, uneventful wingsuit jump and landed in the water. The second jumper wearing a Prodigy Suit left and did a front flip. Neither Adam nor I saw the second, involuntary, flip, and we did not have radio contact with the viewing area or the landing area.

I looked over the cliff and started checking what my line was going to be. Here is where all the holes in my logic started popping up. I looked and I saw something that wasn't there. I saw in my head that I could do a gainer into my track. I saw, but I didn't see. I was looking through inexperienced, naive, ignorant, fearful eyes. I fucked up. I looked over to Adam and said I was going to do a gainer. He looked back and said that he was going to do a front flip. I felt that click of reality in my head for a brief second before I pushed it away again, and asked "really?" He said yes. I looked over a few more times balking a bit at the jump. We decided I would go towards the left side of the landing area, and he would go towards the right. I did the count, and I left. I never saw Adam again.

The moment I came out of my gainer-- even before due to peripheral-- I knew I had just made the biggest mistake of my life. All I remember is thinking "this track better kick in soon." It did, and I realized that I needed the best track of my life to clear that ledge, as there was no way that I could pull with how low I was. I felt relief and euphoria wash over me as I cleared the ledge and headed out over the water. I pulled and was under canopy.

That is when my confusion began. I instantly knew how serious the front flip would have been, but we tell ourselves the lies we need to be told in order to finish what we need to do. I thought he must have pulled low. Nope. High, maybe blocked by the sun? No. I settled with the notion that he just must have not jumped for some reason-- loose chest strap or something.

I landed in the water and the boat came to pull me out. As I was clinging to the boat, I looked at my friend and asked if he had seen 2, because it was supposed to be a 2-way. The look on his face confirmed the nightmare. They scrambled to the other side of the boat, looking for any sign of Adam along the cliff. I just floated in the water praying that a croc would get me. I finally dragged myself to the back of the boat and with the driver's help, I finally flopped into the boat.

It was not until much later that I found out that Adam had gone after me and gone further left; that he had over-rotated his front flip.

I have always been a loner, but sitting on that beach for hours, waiting for any word, I have never felt more isolated and singularly alone in my life. That feeling lingers.

I had promised someone who I care about very much, that I would not do any aerials on that jump. Adam did the same. I really can't say what it was within both of us that caused us to go back on our word, but I think I have finally found my first ever regret in this life. If only....

So, here's the list of my personal fuck ups on this jump:
>I should have waited to see more experienced people exit first, so that I would have a better grasp on the magnitude of this jump.
>I should have done a solo for the first jump of of a new cliff with my experience level
>I should have gone off flat and stable to "scout out" the new jump for myself
>Reiterating the last point: I lost a good 2 1/2-3 seconds doing a gainer. That is time that I would have loved to have had back as I was shitting myself trying to get past the ledge.
>I should have gone over the launch direction and briefing again out loud with people that knew better than I what they were seeing when they looked over.
>Worry about your own actions more than that of the crocs

More importantly, I really feel that I should have been more true to my instincts and not jumped. I was more fearful on that jump than I have ever been prior to it. I did not listen to my body... I just thought I should go go go.

Most importantly, I should have kept my word. When someone with over 10x's your experience asks you not to do something, it's probably for a pretty good reason, even if you can't see it then

The gainer. The truth of it is, at some point this summer, the gainer became my 'crutch' move. I can finally be honest about that. I had always heard about people that struggled to do a flat and stable exit because all they ever did were aerials, I hadn't realized that I had moved in that direction. I was scared and gainers made me feel confident, so that's probably why I saw what I wanted to see when I looked over that ledge. Beyond that, I really thought that I could pull it off. Of course, the true test of a successful jump is not whether you can 'pull it off,' but rather if you can repeat it.

I am so sincerely sorry to everyone at the event for many different reasons.
I am sorry to Tracy for telling Adam I wanted to do a gainer. I will never know if he would have done a front flip anyway.
I am sorry to the Mexican BASE Crew for my disregard for what you all have fought to open. I am so grateful that my reckless actions did not put an end to jumping in the Canyon. I am so sorry.
I am sorry to the other jumpers there for my part in damaging an event that was to be incredible.
I am so sorry that I let my inexperience get in the way of my better judgement.
I am sorry to the BASE community for forgetting that every jump I do is bigger than myself and is a contributing part to a whole that I am representing, as well.
I am sorry to those that told me to slow down. I listened too late.
I am so sorry for breaking my promise.

I am forever changed. I am sorry that it took you to do that, Adam.

giilian parker

[piisfish 135]

Thank you for posting this Gilian. I hope many people read and learn from your post.

It takes huge courage to write all that.

Thoughts going your way. Hope them thoughts help you a little.

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[Bennii 0]

Im sorry that you had to go through all that but it seems that you are doing the only correct thing in situation like this (learn and make you stronger). From what i learned about getting to know Adam this summer is that he would not have wanted you in any way taking responsibility in his death.

Take care and be strong

Benjamín

[Trebec 0]

not sure what to say gillian...

[Faber 0]

Giilian,What you just wrote were werry touching.Im happy that you told your storry.

I hope you will realice that Adam DIDNT do his front loop as you said you would do a gainer.Ive only meet Adam once but am werry sure that Adam knew what he were doing and he belived he could pull it off.
I see no reasson to blame you as of his death.

BASE is a personal sport and we all know the risks,so did Adam,from the attitude i got the impression whith Adam the one time i meet him were that he knew what he were doing and he wouldnt do anything that he didnt felt right..

I got busted at my local daylight A whith Adam and 2 others,and i never felt so a shamed i showed them my object told them it were ok to jump at daylight and then we got busted.. each of us got a 133Euro ticket and Adam could have used thouse mony better on his trip.But as he told me he knew the risk and even daylight A´s aint always legal(which they knew),Adam never blamed me for this.

Let me know if you x denmark ill take you out any day.

We all make mistakes,aslong we learn from them we has become better..

Stay safe
Stefan Faber

[cesslon 0]

speaking from a non jumpers perspective here.


if he was 10 years old and you said what you said that would be wrong, he how ever was a responsible experienced adult who made up his own mind on what he wanted to do,
your not responsible in anyway.

best wishes to you as well as best wishes to him and his family.

[fozchek 0]

I have truly appreciated everyone's comments and sentiments that have been made both publicly in this forum and privately.

I feel blessed to have known Adam, though the time was all too short. The greatest blessing has been in having the opportunity to get to know his brother, Ben, his future sister-in-law, Stacey, and his inspiring wife, Tracy. Knowing and speaking with all of the aforementioned individuals has allowed me to let go of any guilt. We all make our own choices. It still doesn't mean that I don't feel sorrow for the circumstances and my role within them.

My intention with my post was to accept responsibility for my role in the incident in a way that will hopefully encourage others to partake in a bit of self-reflection.

Every jump that I make, I learn more about myself and this sport. On that jump, I learned more than I could hardly stand to absorb, in one go. I just hope that others don't have to learn those lessons in the difficult manner that I did.

I was approaching BASE in the wrong manner. Adam was my 'reset button.' I honor him by continuing on as a safer, more introspective, more conservative jumper who has shitloads of fun coupled with longevity.

I was blind, but now I see.

[freebase 0]

Admitting that you f-ed up shows character...

Thanks for the post.

[Eiley 0]

Damn, Gill, you did so much for me a few years ago and I just don't know what to say to you now.

I hope you have a "Gillian" there for you, the way I did. I've never forgotten it.

BSBD

nothing to see here

[Tyrion 0]

The media love DZ.com...

[Mikki_ZH 0]

Quote

The media love DZ.com...

To the “journalist” who wrote the above mentioned article:

Fuck you, you lazy stupid piece of shit. You are too lazy and gutless to do an interview with the person you are writing about. You take a very personal statement of hers that is aimed for the BASE community and you copy/post these words to sell whatever cheap paper you’re working for.
As a BASE Jumper I know that very few of your breed are actually trying to inform and not only sell with your stories. But I’m still amazed from time to time how low you go…

Michi (#1068)
hsbc/gba/sba
www.swissbaseassociation.ch
www.michibase.ch

[kirrz 0]

Quote

The media love DZ.com...

that is so fucked up. especially for what is considered to be one of the more "credible" papers here. i have told the journalist exactly what i think of this article, anyone else who wishes to do so: [email protected]

i have also sent a complaint to the editor [email protected] outlining how this article violates many of their published code of ethics (http://www.smh.com.au/ethicscode/)

gillian, the journalist is a fuckwit. i hope you find your peace. [url]

[georgechurchill 0]

Hi Gillian. I hope your ok.
My sincere condolences to everyone who new Adam, he was a lovely guy and it's really sad that he is no longer with us.

Re the journalist using dropzone.com as a quote.

You can hardly make a post on this forum and then get upset if someone uses the post. If you don’t want your thoughts to be made public, then don't post on the internet.

The Journalist is just doing his job; at least he has taken the time to research what he was writing. Better that than the ones who just make shit up because they can’t be bothered with the research.

George

http://georgechurchill.blogspot.com

[pocbase 0]

If you consider
ctrl c
ctrl v
from one and only source as "research" and "doing his job"...

The bums will never win Lebowski, the bums will never win!
Enfin j'ai trouvé:
Bieeeen

[kirrz 0]

Quote

Hi Gillian. I hope your ok.
My sincere condolences to everyone who new Adam, he was a lovely guy and it's really sad that he is no longer with us.

Re the journalist using dropzone.com as a quote.

You can hardly make a post on this forum and then get upset if someone uses the post. If you don’t want your thoughts to be made public, then don't post on the internet.

The Journalist is just doing his job; at least he has taken the time to research what he was writing. Better that than the ones who just make shit up because they can’t be bothered with the research.

George

I don't want to make a debate out of this but I am a media student - we are taught to verify the accuracy of our info (this is in the SMH code of ethics too). Gillian could have made the whole post up, the journalist would never have known. There are no interviews, no back up sources - nothing. The entire article is based around one post. In principal then, I could go up to a random forum and write an ultra-controversial (but completely false) post and have an entire news article in a "credible" paper devoted to me (the SMH is our equivalent to the NY times).

Also in their code of ethics is "respect for private grief" which this totally violates.

This is not journalism. It's bullshit.

[cpoxon 0]

I think this is way out of line too and I think the journalist is scum. This may be a public website but I wish the journalist would have respected the boundaries of the community here. Do we have to lock everything down so only a few people can read? Then we run the risk of people missing out on information that is pertinent to them.

However, playing Devil's advocate,

Quote

I don't want to make a debate out of this

Too late :-/

Quote

Gillian could have made the whole post up, the journalist would never have known.

Good point.

Quote

Also in their code of ethics is "respect for private grief" which this totally violates.

Not such a good point. The fact that it is on a public website means that it's not private grief. I know what you are getting at, and I allude to the same thing with my comment about respecting boundaries of the community, but if the paper want to play it by the rules, isn't that what they are going to say?

I really respect Gillian for having the courage to say what she did but I really despise the journalist for trying to capitalise on it :-(

Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live

[PhreeZone 14]

Media is still using this thread

Watch what you post, never know when it will be printed in the papers.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

[SabreDave 0]

Yes the media......

I graduated from a well known and respected photojournalism course here in Calgary. I worked for a newspaper for about 3 months. That is all it took for me to realize that today's journalism is total fucking garbage along with the huge majority of the journalists. I saw so much fabricated, word twisting utter bullshit it made me sick.
It cost me about $20,000 all in for me to do that 2 years of school and I have walked away and feel pretty damn good about that. Selling my soul so some asshole shareholders can make a few bucks just seemed a little too expensive for my tastes. At least I can sleep easy knowing am not a pond-scum sucking "journalist".
Kirrz, glad U can already see the light on this and you nailed it! This would be considered piss-poor journalism at best. Cutting and pasting off the internet is both low and shows very, very poor ethics.

janogibson, U are a an ass!

SabreDave

[freakydiver 0]

Touching.

My prayers are with you.

-- (N.DG) "If all else fails – at least try and look under control." --

[fozchek 0]

wow. i truly never considered that would happen. here i thought that taking responsibility was different from taking blame. i also thought that it would maybe help jumpers not some writer write an article.

all too true that they had a rght to do it. it doesn't change the fact that those self-serving fucks just cheapened something that actually meant a lot to me. i was trying to move forward. not to mention the unnecessary suffering they are all too willingly plunging his family and friends back into.

exploited. yeah, that's the word.

ultimately,we all need to make certain that our actions still allow us to look ourselves squarely in the eye in the mirror at the end of the day.

how are you doing with that, jano?

[Trebec 0]

Gillian i think their is a lot to be said here that wasnt said, maybe it is better that way?

[Tyrion 0]

They're using that same AAP release on ninemsn.com too.

I still find it difficult to believe they use a non-verified source as base for a "credible" news article. What a load of crap.

[TomAiello 25]

Gillian,

If you want this post to disappear, let me know and I'll remove it from here.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[deadmanwalking 0]

Quote

Gillian i think their is a lot to be said here that wasnt said, maybe it is better that way?

I agree! Base is not for everyone...

Symmetry doesn't matter.

[MartinRosen 0]

First.

Many thanks for youre post Gillian. It gave me a bigger picture of the whole situation. And beleave it or not in youre state of mind now. Im not supriced. it could happend to many of us. Base is a sport where falior is not an option. And hey we are all humans. we will fail. Many times in our lifes. we will se our selfs fail, our good friends fail and it will happend again.

I think you should not blame your self for things that happend to Adam, he was a person that clearly made his own desitions and sane enough to take responsibility for it.

What you can do with what you have now is to now more about your self, you can learn from your own mistakes and have this (your own jump) as a reminder .

What happend to Adam is not your fault and not our responsibility. Even thoug I truly understand your fealings about this.

I have so much respect for what you just told us. Its a wonderful and tragic text to read.
If it helps I really think you just took your first step to get everything that feels fucked to get less fucked.
Keep up your good spirit and let good people inspire you and dont let assholes get you down!

Second.
The so called Journalist is a predator, ready to rip every story a part jsut for some publicity. The news paper dosent give a shit and news-papers or Media will never ever give a shit.

This guy read this and made choice. A choice to stop being Human and being media.

I have some years in journalist school and I can tell you guys. After that I realized that Media is not jounalism just as little as politics are for the people. Its about selling, its about populism, itsl all about the money and the numbers. to them we are just numbers, dont let these fuckers bring us down.

Every time we feed of the media to get fame, money or sponsors, remember that they will feed from us for more action and gore. Its all business. unfortunally.

I can now say IM not a journalist anymore. Im becoming a paramedic nurce, that feels much better.

take care all you and stay disco Gill!

regards
/martin

/Martin - Team Bautasten of Sweden