How long were you in this sport before a friend died?

[Doogie320 0]

An aquaintance: 3 months (the first of several). I watched him go in.

A friend: 7 years (also the first of several).

I'm running 50/50 on those lost in the sport and out of the sport. Suicides, drunk driver.....

[BirdWoman 0]

Just under 5 years for me. Then I lost my DZO/best friend. After that it was down hill and I lost 8 more over the next 18months. Tack on another two within the last year and a couple months.

So yes, it will happen, especially with the more dropzones and boogies you go to.

"I don't know where it is that I'm going, but wherever it is there I'll be!" --quoted by me

[upndownshop 0]

Oh boy, hummm not sure I want to go here but....
Being a second gen my answer may seem a bit strange. But I was 10 yo when I lost my first true "friend" my mentor as well. He taught me all the things about skydiving that I wouldn't listen to my father about. His son is still very active and has one of, if not the oldest skydiving team in our history.

Since then: loss of true friends- 12 off the top of my head, plus my father, only two of those we not from skydiving. This does not include plane crashes or base.

How many acquaintances? I couldn't even begin to count. One of the drawbacks to traveling the country for almost 4 years as a Mfr. rep in the industry.

How many have I witnessed? About a dozen.

Everyone of them hurt and some still do, but it seems that in the last 5 years I sort of feel "numb" in a way to it all. Not that I dont grieve, but something seems different at times. Not that you ever get used to it, but maybe, well, almost "expecting" it. Especially reaching 40 and all the ones I knew as a young man, many have gone in the last 5 years. They do always end up with a tear, a jump and a beer.

I can say this, focusing on the memories, all the laughs, jumps, beers and hugs always bring a smile to my face and maybe a tear, but those are what seem to make it ok for me.

Oh and one other way I dealt with one death was organizing one bad ass boogie for the last 8 years. See it works, just got a big smile from some memories.

There, I got it off my chest, can I go now?
Blue Skies to you all and see you again someday.

[UDSkyJunkie 0]

I was 7 years old. Obviously I had never jumped, but it's my first and one of my most memorable experiences of someone being killed jumping... it hit me hard at the time. After I started jumping, it was in 2006... 7 years. That's the first I would have called a "friend". there were multiple others that I knew who died in those 7 years, but I wasn't close to any of them.

how did I handle it? good question. When I was a kid, it was my introduction to the concept of death, and it was brutal. the guy in '06, we kind of saw it coming... it sucked, but I accepted and moved on. There's really not any other way to deal with it.

"Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

[potatoman 0]

someone said it: A teer, a beer, and another jump. Get over it by remembering the good times, what you learned from them and what you can show others in the same way. Sad to say, but yes, you will go too, possibly skydiving, and that is the way I would like to be remembered.

You have the right to your opinion, and I have the right to tell you how Fu***** stupid it is.
Davelepka - "This isn't an x-box, or a Chevy truck forum"
Whatever you do, don't listen to ChrisD.

[rwieder 0]

2 1/2 years in the sport i lost a friend, stupid accident, his fault. the next 2 months 2 more, don't even want to discuss the incidents, I almost sold my equipment and quit, but i just couldn't. I've also lost 3 more to natural causes. Ol Dr. Death is a silent type, when you least expect it, he'll be waiting for you, Dodge The Bastard.

-Richard-
"You're Holding The Rope And I'm Taking The Fall"

[dixiegypsy 0]

Only a couple of months...

It was the only person I knew from outside of skydiving, and was actually surprised to find out they he had started the sport.

He was my best friend's dad whom I had known since 8th grade...

Tough spot, though because of it I try to stay safer just to know that I don't want my best friend to have to go through that again.

-jen

"Love all. Trust few. Do wrong to none." -Shakespeare

Gold Coast Skydivers
Pink Mafia #176

[dqpacker 7]

First one when I was five, My dad and four others in a plane crash. Next was my friend on a base jump, I was 18 then. Than a low hook a couple years later took another.
I haven't seen a fatality yet and hope not to. I have seen some that the way the person hit, they should have died but lived or walked away.

[Lastchance 0]

5 yrs. 2 in one plane crash. Blue Skies Joel and Dave.

I may be getting old but I got to see all the cool bands.

[JCW1966 0]

I was in the sport all of 2.5 months when my mom's best friend and a very dear friend of mine as well died. She died from an aneurysm. I just happen to be out of town skydiving when it happened. It was the worst phone call of my life.

I was in the sport for a year before I lost my first friend in a skydiving accident, July 28th, 2007. Then a year later it has happened again.

I also have had friends who lost their friends in skydiving accidents my 2nd week in the sport, about 8 months into the sport, and again 2 years into the sport.

Ever since getting into the sport back in July of 2006 death has been all around me in some form or fashion.

Does it make me want to quit? No, but it does make me question what the hell I'm doing sometimes.

I still feel that I'm in more danger driving 2.5 hours to the DZ than I do jumping at the DZ so that's a plus I guess.

[pirana 0]

2 aquaintances, no friends. Never witnessed a fatality, and there have been none at the DZ I call home (20+ years).

And to add a thought about frequency of friends dying; they will all die eventually. I did lose my best friend from college, my soul brother and kindred spirit; to a spinal column tumor. I lost my best astronomizing friend to a really stupid boating accident. Another good friend from college to brain cancer. One of my best party-animal friends to a heart attack in his early 50's.

Don't know where I was going with that. I miss them all dearly. On the other hand; get your ya-yas out. Our time here is finite, and like a roll of TP, the closer you get to the end, the faster it seems to go.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[Icon134 0]

The first death while I was at the dz and I personally knew was about 3 months in.

The 2nd one about a year after that.

The 3rd and 4th (only one of which I had personally jumped with) occured when I was just entering my third year (the 5th friend was later that summer)

the 6th person I knew personally (and was present at the dz when it happened) occured in the begining of my 4th year in the sport.

A few weeks ago I was afraid that I had been around another when one of the girls hit the tail of the aircraft on a hop & pop but fortunately she managed to come away with not much more then brusies.

many of the people that I've know that died have been under good canopies and made piloting errors.

Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

[3331 108]

It was spring 1970, I'd been in the sport 7 months with the Columbus Skydivers in Darbydale Ohio, I had 30 jumps.

Dave Koler had about the same number of jumps and we both had a flat spin problem. The experienced jumpers concerned with safety told us when you can't get out of a spin PULL, better to kick out of line twists then pull real low or worse.

We had the other type of jumpers who were the very definition of Skygod, they criticized and ridiculed us and didn't offer much help.

Dave Koler was very bothered by the ridicule and would fight the spinning problem, legs out--legs up--different arm positions, nothing seemed to work. On his last jump one of the experienced club members jumped with him, he flew up to Dave and watched him spin out of control then tracked away. I saw Dave just above the tree line, his main pilot chute was coming out he was in a spin, I can still hear the sound of his body hitting the ground.

I Jumped with the guys who invented Skydiving.

[tbrown 26]

My second year in the sport, 1975. One of my Jumpmasters was killed on an RW jump. It was just a 3 or 4 Way from a Cessna, but one of the other guys had a Sentinel Mk1000 AAD on his reserve, which fired prematurely at 3000 - 3500 ft. Brad ate the guy's reserve and hit the guy. The other guy managed to land under his main, with not too serious injuries, but Brad was knocked out, if not killed outright by the collision and he never pulled.

This was one of the incidents that gave AADs a bad name among relative workers in the old days and contributed to the "students only" attitude about them.

But in fairness to SSE, who made the Sentinel, I also heard that the guy with the AAD had calibrated it in the plane, after takeoff, which was totally stupid. It cost somebody else his life.

The first time I ever saw somebody go in was 1976. Saw a newbie with 23 jumps pull his reserve and wrap it up in a horseshoed main. I was pretty close to 100 jumps by then.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[gravitysurfer 0]

Year 3. 1st person was my tandem examiner. In the next four months lost as many acquaintances.

Now it's too many for me to count on both hands.

aloha.

[tonka 2]

Lost a couple friends before I even started jumping
just hangin out at the DZ as a little kid while my dad jumped.

Since i started jumping I have known two people.
It was in my first year of skydiving.
One I didnt know so well but he was still a friend and the other was one of my most liked skydiving friends.
Very hard especially since I saw it happen from the air, landed nearby, and was on scene right away.
His fatality report is in the most recent parachutust.

Have known a couple people to be so badly injured they were lucky to live and seen several hard hits where youd expect the worst and they walked away.

Thats life I guess. I mean car wrecks and stupid shit like that have also taken friends out so you cant expect it not to happen skydiving. We are jumping out of planes after all.

[Andy9o8 0]

Quote

I also heard that the guy with the AAD had calibrated it in the plane, after takeoff, which was totally stupid. It cost somebody else his life.

Which is a lesson that carries through to today with modern AAD's - the place to turn on your AAD is at the DZ, on the ground - not at home (which might be at a different elevation than the DZ), and definitely not on the plane after takeoff.

Quote

The first time I ever saw somebody go in was 1976. Saw a newbie with 23 jumps pull his reserve and wrap it up in a horseshoed main. I was pretty close to 100 jumps by then.

For other readers' info (you already know this), that was the student I referred to in post #17. As it was described to me by a couple (other) people who were there, he packed the hook end of his "Stevens System" RSL lanyard into his main container, and that snagged the main bag on deployment, causing it to horsehoe & baglock. Then he failed to cut away before the reserve was deployed. If he'd packed properly or caught the error in a gear check, or if his JM had caught the error in a gear check, it wouldn't have happened. Maybe if he'd cut away the main mal before reserve deployment he might have made it (assuming the main would have fully jettisoned).

I didn't witness either incident I mentioned in my post.

[wildfan75 1]

2 years, 3 months and 3 days.

Not sure how I'm going to handle it.

[rehmwa 2]

I started skydiving in '87

1st was a friend from when I trained - he was TM and it was a double - in the early 90's

2nd was about 2000 - he landed hard under a perfectly good canopy - the accident was 1997 or so - the coma was about 3 years

3rd was last year - he hit an obstacle while under a perfectly good canopy

4th was last week - hard landing, I don't know the facts yet, he liked to swoop hard

I really hate losing my friends - I miss them

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

[Dumpster 0]

About 5 years.

Lost two friends in the same season, within 3 months of each other

Easy Does It

[billvon 2,400]

First was Harry Rosenblatt, our pilot, in a crash on Long Island. He was a good guy but, as it turned out, not a great pilot. I'd been in the sport less than a year.

Next was John O'Hara, a good friend who I learned a lot from. He died midair in Eloy when Lupe Gonzales collided with him. Lupe's knee hit his head. Lupe lost his leg.

In both of the above cases, I was one of the first to reach the person. It was a very creepy feeling to know what to do, and be running through first responder and CPR procedures but seeing every clinical sign that they're just not going to make it. The few hours after both incidents were very surreal for me; I lost about four hours in Eloy somehow.

Next was Diego, a guy who went in when another skydiver packed him a mal. You think dealing with a death is hard - I felt _really_ bad for John, who had (indirectly) contributed to Diego's death.

Next was Al.

And now to skip ahead about a decade, otherwise this post would get really long.

For some reason Taz's death hit me very hard. We were planning to have dinner that Thursday in Thailand, but that's the day we got the record and the drinking began pretty early. We had made plans for her to come out and "sleep in our garage" (she didn't want to be an imposition, see) when I heard she died. I think it hit me hard because she was just starting to grow into the sport, and she was going to be one of the best - and she was someone who had enough love for everyone.

Barb's death was eerie in a lot of ways. We all know we can die in this sport. But Barb had survived cancer, dog attacks, freefall collisions, car crashes - and then she died while sitting in a bathtub. It seemed like the wrong way for her to die, somehow. (Not that there's any right way to die.)

Is there any good way to deal with them? Not that I know of, other than time. Nothing "makes it better" or gets things back the way they were. We just have to move on.

[gearless_chris 1]

I've had several friends die in my 5 years , but they weren't skydiving related; car crash, heart attacks, cancer. Dan was the first skydiving related (reserve bridle entanglement) two weeks ago. I'm surprised that this was the first time for all of us at ISA to personally know someone that went in.

"If it wasn't easy stupid people couldn't do it", Duane.

My momma said I could be anything I wanted when I grew up, so I became an a$$hole.

[wildfan75 1]

I should add to my post that this first that I spoke about and not knowing how to handle it was not because I lost someone to a skydiving accident. It's because he was my best friend and my entire future. It's been five days, and I've made four jumps since then. He wouldn't have wanted it any other way (well, actually he would have been pissed that I've only done four with the weather we've had and the opportunities that I've had but all great relationships are due to the ability to compremise).

If you're going to jump, jump. If you're going to jump, do it for yourself. How many people have you known that have died in a car crash, but yet you've gotten into a car a hundred/thousand times after?

[tbrown 26]

Quote

An acquaintance after about 5 months - a freefall-into-canopy collision.

A friend after about 11 months - a student who was incompetent (forgive me, My Friend) being jumpmastered by an up-jumper who was equally incompetent. Long story short: deadly combination.

Both at the same DZ. That was back in the 70's.

Andy,
The acquaintance was Carol on Easter Sunday '76 ? I wasn't there for that, but still remember.

Irv J was Nick's JM. I still remember Irv when he landed, white as a sheet and asking me if Nick was dead.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[Andy9o8 0]

Quote

Quote

An acquaintance after about 5 months - a freefall-into-canopy collision.

A friend after about 11 months - a student who was incompetent (forgive me, My Friend) being jumpmastered by an up-jumper who was equally incompetent. Long story short: deadly combination.

Both at the same DZ. That was back in the 70's.

Andy,
The acquaintance was Carol on Easter Sunday '76 ? I wasn't there for that, but still remember.

Irv J was Nick's JM. I still remember Irv when he landed, white as a sheet and asking me if Nick was dead.

Yes. As I said, I wasn't there when that happened, either; although I did watch Dave make his recurrency jump a few months later after his leg healed up.