FreeSportyFinch 0 #1 September 25, 2009 G'day, 21/05/09 was the date of my last skydive; bad accident on 124 Mamba. L1 Fractured, L2 Dislocated, L3 Burst Fracture. After 6 weeks hospital and some titanium in my spine I am luckily walking and getting fit again. I currently live and breath physio, the pool and the gym with the sole purpose of getting fit and running again so can return to my passion and job which is skydiving - nothing in my life is more important bar breathing. Its looking like my return will be late 2010. I am just looking for some feedback from other skydivers who have had similar injuries and returned to the sport. Things like, were you able to do tandems? What level of back pain do you get? Any hinderances? Any advice? Cheers. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bozo 0 #2 September 25, 2009 QuoteG'day, 21/05/09 was the date of my last skydive; bad accident on 124 Mamba. L1 Fractured, L2 Dislocated, L3 Burst Fracture. After 6 weeks hospital and some titanium in my spine I am luckily walking and getting fit again. . I am just looking for some feedback from other skydivers who have had similar injuries and returned to the sport. Things like, were you able to do tandems? What level of back pain do you get? Any hinderances? Any advice? Cheers. --------------------------------------------------------- My back injury is almost identical to yours with the addition of a hip replacement. I rehabbed with returning to skydiving my goal. I returned to the sky almost a year to the day. I made 1400+ jumps of which 400 were tandems. I recently had to quit the sport due to neurological problems with my hands ,related to the back injury. Now.....13 years after my initial bounce I am fully disabled. I have had 4 back surgeries just this spring. I always wonder would I be in this condition if I hadnt gone back to jumping. I miss skydiving everyday but I still wonder ...what if. I would never try to discourage anyone from going back to the sport but you need to remember theres a lot of life left after skydiving is gone. Do you want to live it in terrible pain everyday? bozo Pain is fleeting. Glory lasts forever. Chicks dig scars. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
riggerrob 558 #3 September 25, 2009 I injured my spine - herniated discs - twice. The first time was in 1987 and the second 2008. The first injury was probably due to compressing my spine landing first generation tandem mains. The pain started with cramps in my left leg. After three weeks of - progressively worse - limping, I went to a doctor who specialized in sports medicine. He diagnosed me with a herniated disc - in my lower spine - that was pressing on my sciatic nerve. He offered surgery followed by six months bed rest. Since I could not tolerate the thought of six months in bed, I opted for drugs and physio-therapy, neither of which did much good. I wasted the first winter laying around in pain. The second winter I swam two or three times a week and was able to do a few skydives that summer. The third winter I took aerobics classes three times a week and that got me fit enough to earn a Progressive Freefall Instructor rating. My second spinal injury occurred last summer during a King Air crash. The worst injury as a second herniated disc in my lower spine. The King Air crash also gave me a concussion, a new scar on my forehead, dislocated shoulder and more bruises than I can count. For the first month I only did lots of drugs and slept a lot, waking up barely long enough for short walks. I also started stretching and doing sit-ups to strengthen my core muscles. Two months of physio-therapy (two different programs) followed, but I re-injured my shoulder packing (BIG MISTAKE!!!) and was going backwards during the last two weeks physio-therapy. Six months after the crash, I was almost fit enough to return to solo skydiving. It took most of a year to return to tandems and PFF on a regular basis. But I persisted with stretching, sit-ups, push-ups, etc. and a year later am probably back to 90 percent of my earlier strength. While I can do more push-ups (40 at a time) and more chin-ups (20 at a time), I am still weak in the legs. In conclusion it was only hundreds of hours of stretching and thousands of sit-ups that got me back on my feet. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bjadpm 1 #4 September 25, 2009 I had a similar injury on 6/8/08--I broke my back in 7 places between L1 and L5, with L4 being shattered into 23 retrievable pieces. I had surgery on 6/13 with placement of 2 rods and a femoral allograft to essentially fuse L3-L5. I spent a month in the hospital before I was even strong enough to walk with a walker, as I also had a sever spinal cord injury that left me with severe weakness to my entire left lower extremity. I was placed in a TLSO (upper body brace) for 4 months to let the other fractures heal and for the fusion to begin to mend. I was also in physical therapy during those 4 months as well. I progressed from a walker to a cane after about two weeks, and used a cane for about two months. ***WARNING: REALLY STUPID ACT AHEAD*** On Sept. 7, one day short of three months from the original accident, I made a Hop and Pop. I felt as though I needed to get back in the air, so I did it in the most careful way I could--subterminal opening, large canopy, etc...The worst part of the entire experience was the ride to altitude, as sitting in that position with my rig on was excrutiating. The jump went well, and it was all I needed to hold me over for another 6 months--until I was really feeling better. Fast forward to March of this year--I still had pain and weakness in my back, but the lower extremity had healed and gotten stronger as my spinal cord got better. I began jumping regularly again, although I was very nervous and careful about my landings... As the Spring and Summer went by, I made another 100 or so jumps so far, and am still surprised by how much better I am feeling month to month--I never would have anticipated it taking this long to recover from a spine/spinal cord injury. My back doesn't limit my jumping in any way, and I am back to doing all the things I could before strength-wise. I still have constant pain in my back, both from nerves getting compressed as well as the surgical scars from my operation. So, to answer your question, you can completely recover in a reasonable amount of time from this type of injury. You will most likely always have pain--a daily reminder of your accident--but it shouldn't keep you from jumping. You may want to reconsider taking tandems in the future, simply due to the added mass/inertia should another landing accident occur--it will most likely injure your back much worse than the first time. But, all in all, just over a year later, I'm glad that I continue to jump and if you didn't know what I had been through, you'd never guess it by observing me now. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
FreeSportyFinch 0 #5 September 27, 2009 Cheers for the feedback and the private messages recieved; just what i wanted to hear. Blue ones Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
