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cheapNfun

Updating the fatality logs for 2014 and 2015

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Hi,

I was wondering why the fatality logs haven't been updated since mid-2014. These logs are a valuable resource as they give important stats and can also be used for learning. USPA as well as skydivefatalities have not updated their site in a while. As a new student, I'm curious to know why.

If it is a case of nobody manning the job, I wouldn't mind doing it, but given that I'm new, I thought I'd ask to know what's going on first.

On a side note- Many reports that are already logged are miscategorized as well- what's the procedure for maintenance and corrections?

Thanks!

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WTF? Registered two weeks ago, blank profile, and you want to do what? You wouldn't happen to be a troll, would you?
"Here's a good specimen of my own wisdom. Something is so, except when it isn't so."

Charles Fort, commenting on the many contradictions of astronomy

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You wouldn't happen to be a troll, would you?



I don't actually want to do it nor do I think I should, but it's just a matter of cross-referencing posts and just filling out the form because that info is already available on the incidence forum. I just want the info to be there in an easy to search, quantifiable format.

My main question was why do the updates stop at a year and a half ago...?

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It's the busy summer jump (nice weather) season. I'd rather jump while there is still the option than analyze data. Wouldn't you? Crap weather is coming... In the meantime, jump a lot, learn your gear and procedures and why each part of a gear check/emergency procedure is important, practice in hanging harnesses at least once a month, and then jump more.

There is plenty of data on this site from years past and reports from this year to read through if you'd rather read now and jump later.

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cheapNfun

Quote

You wouldn't happen to be a troll, would you?



I don't actually want to do it nor do I think I should, but it's just a matter of cross-referencing posts and just filling out the form because that info is already available on the incidence forum. I just want the info to be there in an easy to search, quantifiable format.

My main question was why do the updates stop at a year and a half ago...?



Ask Phreezone. He manages the Incidents forum. He might be able to give you some ideas.

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Honestly - Its a lack of time for me right now. I've got two kids, travel a lot for my job and spend the weekends at the DZ. ;) It takes a lot of time to sort though each thread in the incidents forum to try and get the details out from each fatality and then to sum up the details into 4-5 sentences. Craig who runs Skydivefatalities is in the same boat as me with a lack of time. If you see anything wrong just shoot me a note and I can correct them fairly quickly.

Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

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Croc

WTF? Registered two weeks ago, blank profile, and you want to do what? You wouldn't happen to be a troll, would you?



Really? This is the judgemental conclusion you come to? A new jumper makes a profile 2 weeks ago, doesn't meticulously update every aspect of it to your standards, then asks a perfectly valid (and helpful) question, and gets pounced on by you? Are you THAT paranoid that you think anyone with a new profile offering to help is a troll? Sometimes, just sometimes, maybe, but only occasionally...people genuinely want to help.
"When once you have tasted flight..."

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>>If it is a case of nobody manning the job, I wouldn't mind doing it<<

cheapNfun,

I can offer you some insight into what you're suggesting. I started the original BFL in 1989 and I kept it current for its first fifteen years.

That same year of 1989 I also started a small BASE magazine called, “The Fixed Object Journal.” And for the first three issues, or so, there are no BASE fatality reports included because no BASE fatalities occurred. Worldwide the BASE community at the time is still fairly small and since the 1978 Yosemite jumps that ignited the sport only six “modern” BASE fatalities had previously occurred.

This is also a time in the sport when BASE jumpers aren't going higher and higher they are going lower and lower. And there are many accidents. And at least in my part of the world any gathering of five BASE jumpers included one on crutches. So I added a section in the magazine called, “Black Box – Anatomy of an Accident” I know dramatic, huh? But I didn't write those reports myself. Either the jumper involved or someone who was there would send in the report and I'd just publish it.

It was kind of natural I'd follow the USPA format for accident reporting as I'd already been reading those for over 15 years. But it dawned on me there was no reason to make the reports anonymous as everyone knew who had the accident locally, and to a smaller extent, so did everyone else worldwide.

I had no idea how that decision would play out years later but for then it worked well. There are no rules or regulations concerning BASE jumping as we were faithfully following Carl Boenish's mantra of screw the laws of Man. But too many of us were also trying to screw the laws of gravity. So many of the accidents reports are scathing and brutal. “This Bonehead was an accident waiting to happen,” some would begin or end. And a young BASE community learns the only power they have is the power of peer pressure. And there is nothing altruistic about it for the most part. It was strictly site preservation. Getting carted off in an ambulance makes jumping that site harder for others. So while strictly lowbrow those first BASE accident reports did help others from making similar mistakes and we had a few laughs along the way because why not. Nobody was dead after all.

Then a BASE fatality did occur. And I received several reports from the field. But I realized I couldn't publish them as is - as you can't call a dead person a bonehead. So I culled out the relative information and wrote the fatality report myself. Then I decided to include the previous six BASE fatalities to add some perspective and I called it the BASE Fatality List.

I went around a few times on if I should include the names of the dead. The USPA doesn't include a name in its published reports and I knew it was for legal reasons, yet, I always thought it counter-productive and furthered the notion that skydiving fatalities are something that happens to somebody else. But when that somebody else is John Smith it brings home the lesson a bit more and serves as a lasting tribute. Try and name everyone who died skydiving in the year 1966, or 1972, or 1984, and you readily can't. Those names, those people, are gone forever.

Around the year 2000 BASE jumping exploded in popularity and all of a sudden not everyone knew everyone else anymore. The BFL is accepted in the BASE community as a good thing and is nudging closer to a hundred fatalities. And it was beginning to take a toll on me. I had an excellent information network that spanned the globe and I would receive phone calls and emails just hours after a fatality. And I think that was because people trusted me to write a respectful and factual report. And I always tried to do that. In the beginning it was harder to write the reports especially when it was someone I knew, even if I just saw them at a Bridge Day or somewhere else only occasionally. But in about 2005 or so I no longer readily recognized the names of the dead and thought, oh well, maybe this will make it easier. But it didn't. It just got harder.

The end for my involvement with the BFL began around 2006. It simply became too much for me personally especially as the rate of BASE fatalities accelerated. And I know now I only imagined it but when I showed up at BASE events I began feeling like the Grim Reaper or at least the Grim Reaper's recording secretary. And I thought maybe I was spooking people. But I was only spooking myself. And I wasn't having fun BASE jumping anymore. And no fun = no sport. The final straw is the death threats I received when someone didn't like what I wrote about their dead best friend. And the Father who called me and asked how much money I wanted to take his son's name off my scummy list. And that was the end for me.

Just some things to think about if you decide to go ahead.

NickD :-)
BASE 194

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NickDG

when that somebody else is John Smith it brings home the lesson a bit more and serves as a lasting tribute. Try and name everyone who died skydiving in the year 1966, or 1972, or 1984, and you readily can't. Those names, those people, are gone forever.



Many thanks for documenting all of this. I still recall first reading it in 2009 (when I first started skydiving) and you're right, due to the names - and photos - it had a profound effect.
At the time I first read it I believe the last one listed was #130. Looking now I see it has more than doubled since then.

BSBD

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