Skydiving with a pacemaker?

[seemedontu 0]

  Here's the post..

  "I'm sure this topic has come up before. However with technological advances, well times do change.

  So, it only took the medical professionals 5 years for the diagnosis of Sick Sinus Syndrome. No it's not a runny nose, lol. It's a fairly rare issue for anyone under 70, and causes intermittent very low heart rates, I've been waking and talking with a heart rate in the 40s before, many times, and it's no bueno.

  Enter sparky, a dual chamber, high tech pacemaker that actually adjust heart rate based on many different factors, breathing rate included.

So after talking with the heart surgeon, his concerns were the obvious.

1  Impact to the device, which can cause the device to fail, or worse yet, multiple impacts can cause an infection, not good.  My thoughts are a chest plate, maybe like they use with dirt bikes. Heavily padded around the device for extra protection.

2   Dislodging the lead wires that are screwed into my heart. He's not sure either way on that one, however he did say after 6 months the scar tissue should keep the leads in place.  Still it's possible it could "rip out" a chunk of heart muscle if it was violently dislodged. I'm not incredibly worried about that part and not much I can do about it anyway. So, yippee kiyay!


3  Rapid deceleration upon opening. Hey, we've all been spanked by a hard opening on occasion. I'm thinking the best thing there is to fly a lightly loaded 7 cell, PD Spectre comes Immediately to mind.

  I would greatly appreciate any input On this topic. I'm not willing to give up the sport!! Still I do want to mitigate the medical risk to the best extent possible.

  Anyone out there currently skydiving with a pacemaker?
 Anyone know a jumper that's been jumping with a pacemaker?


 Yep, I'm old, I'm in my 50s and I'm ugly too, lol. 
  So please help an old ugly dude out.

  This retired TI and fun jumper wants back into it"

 

[BIGUN 1,042]

 

[Skybanana1942 1]

Hey thanks BIGUN for tagging my post. Seemedontu like I said in my thread stick to your doc's instructions on healing. I took 4 months off from jumping but if your doc says 6 go with what they say. As far as anything else I've learned.

1: I had the hardest opening since I joined the sport a few months after I posted that thread and I was ok, at the time I was actually more worried I had damaged my neck. But everything was OK.

2: I'm pretty selective on who I jump with, if the exit is linked or docks to be made I make sure the person that grabs my left arm knows to let it go if stuff turns into a zoo. I don't want those leads jerked out for sure. 

3. Last year a jumper your age from Alabama that got a pacemaker reached out to me and he seems to be doing well back in the sport as well. The 3 of us should get together and set a state record or something

Hope that helps, cheers!