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MilliniaS

It doesn't matter if you have 1 or 1000....

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>I cannot support a DZ that hours after a major incident happens they
>send jumpers back up in the air.

During many record attempts, it's made clear that we won't stand down if someone dies during the attempt.



Really? I've been a member of a number of world record attempts and actually have 4 'official' FAI WRs and who knows how many other bragging rights records. Not once do I ever recall any organizer or me (if I was the organizer) mention that 'the show must go on'.
On one bragging rights record load we stood down for about 2 hours while people 'collected their thoughts'. If they wanted to jump again they could. If they did not want to, no financial penalty for dropping off the load.


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(For a while, a fatality per record attempt was pretty common.)



This sentence is pure BS.
I can only think of 7 fatalities associated with record attempts (wr or bragging rights) in the 27 years I have been jumping.
Only 6 of these were associated with FAI WR attempts. Two of the 6 fatalities were on 'practice loads' - not an actual WR attempt.
This is a far cry from 'a fatality per record was pretty common'.
I have records of previous records before that. There are no documented deaths associated with those records either.
In fact, in the early days the record loads only reported a sprained ankle or two.


To the OP:
stand downs are not called for in this sport.
99% of the time the jumper did himself in. There is no reason to penalize others for another jumper's mistake.

.
.
Make It Happen
Parachute History
DiveMaker

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I think some of us feel that when an accident occurs, whether it is a malfunction on our own jump or another person has an accident that frightens us, jumping again is something we like to do. Sometimes it might be an act of respect or a way for us to face our fears again. We've been facing that fear for a while and knew what the risks were, so why not face it yet again, soon, when that fear becomes even more real to us. Although it sounds like not jumping would be respectful, we are skydivers and by carrying on we say something that is hard to really explain. I know when I had a malfunction and cutaway, the first thing I did was grab a rental and get right back up. It's a spirit I think a lot of us have that says, we know the risks and we love this sport, so we get right back on that horse and continue and by doing so after a death some of us may feel like it is a salute to those who died. I think that's why some might feel they need to jump after something like that. No one has a problem with shutting down for the day either, if the DZO/DZM/jumepr collective wishes though I'm sure.
Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033
Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

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Chuck,

Your right, I'm wrong. If I might reword that to say "if you think for a second most dz's in the US are going to stand down then your a fool".

I have been to smaller 182 dz's that did stop for the rest of the day, while I have been at most larger one's that only stopped long enough to clean up the mess, others didn't bat an eye and kept the props turning.
you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

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I to am a aff student at spaceland. going into the 12th I had completed level 8. Had Rex not been there I literely would have been jumping that rig, it was the only student 280 at the time.I was on the next load up which was a hour of so after he went in. No one at the DZ said out loud what had happened but if you were paying attention you could figure it out. My heart goes out to Rex's family especially his son that I believe was on the same load as he. I decided to jump because I do not know if i would have went back. I did 3 jumps after his passing with each ride to 14k a little easier each time. I do not know what rex or his family would have wanted but I hope I made the right chose

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I do not know what rex or his family would have wanted but I hope I made the right chose



I think that not knowing what a person would want is part of the problem here. Without discussion with family, friends and fellow jumpers, how can anyone know what our wishes are? Personally, I would want people to get on the next load they could and then have a drink of somesort (even if it's soda, by the way) for me at the end of the day. Not that it wiould necessarily make any difference in what someone else would do, but it might make the choice to jump or not easier if the person's wishes were known.
"safety first... and What the hell.....
safety second, Too!!! " ~~jmy

POPS #10490

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Loosing friends always hurts. If you stick around for a few more years, there is a good chance that you will eventually loose a friend or someone you know well ... this is unfortunate reality of skydiving ... As Kallend said, people react differently. We went up 15 minutes after getting the news that our friend went in and, at least in my opinion, there was nothing disrespectful in this decision. We simply wanted to have a moment with him in the air. We kept jumping after another friend got seriously injured. When another friend went in we stopped ... it was too painful ...

Don't judge people and the dropzone. When you graduate and get your A license, get on that sunset load, open a little higher, fly towards the sun, think about your friend and shout his name out loud. It works ...

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I'm with Keith and Dave here.

If I crash and burn, just move me off to the side of the runway or landing area and keep on truckin'. That's what I want. Be happy I died doing something I love. I envy the hell out of Johnny Gates.

To be more informative,
If it wasn't for the talkers of the world I'd say just take my gear and jumpsuit, throw me in a truck, dump me be the side of the road several miles away and let the state take care of it.

Strato - No CPR. You're allowed to kick me in the nuts for doing something stupid if that was the case.
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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If I crash and burn, just move me off to the side of the runway or landing area and keep on truckin'. That's what I want. Be happy I died doing something I love. I envy the hell out of Johnny Gates.

To be more informative,
If it wasn't for the talkers of the world I'd say just take my gear and jumpsuit, throw me in a truck, dump me be the side of the road several miles away and let the state take care of it.

Strato - No CPR. You're allowed to kick me in the nuts for doing something stupid if that was the case.



I ditto everything above... except the 'kick me in the nuts' part. If you can find nuts on me, have fun kicking them though :P

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

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Ok, but the student I was talking about didn't do anything wrong, other then have a bad heart and the people on the next load were running their mouths in front of the friends and family of the dead guy while we were still working on him, all in all very disrespectful to the non jumping public on the dz. While we as jumpers may understand all that we're talking about here, we MUST keep in mind that in todays tandem factory dz's that not everyone around us "GET'S IT" and our actions and words make us look pretty bad in other peoples book, we can't have it both ways, we bitch about the bad rap we get in the press and over all in the public, yet show such disregard for society norms because we're on a DZ and we expect wuffo's on the field to bow to our way because "it's the skydiver code or way of doing things".

What the hell do think those people are going to say when they leave in shock after such events. All I'm saying is watch what you say and do when this shit goes down, you never know who is on the field and what impression you will make.

Oh and Andy, if you do something stupid, I'll be sure to kick you in the nuts while singing you a HIM.;)

you can't pay for kids schoolin' with love of skydiving! ~ Airtwardo

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I think that not knowing what a person would want is part of the problem here. Without discussion with family, friends and fellow jumpers, how can anyone know what our wishes are? Personally, I would want people to get on the next load they could and then have a drink of somesort (even if it's soda, by the way) for me at the end of the day. Not that it wiould necessarily make any difference in what someone else would do, but it might make the choice to jump or not easier if the person's wishes were known.



If I bounce on the first load of the day, I sure hope someone will cremate me in time for me to have my ash dive on the sunset load the very same day (surely someone can throw me in the furnace between loads without slowing things down). Oh, and before you cremate me, grab my wallet--there's usually enough cash in there for one (or more) last cases of beer :D on me :)
"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

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What I propose is a minimum 24 hour mandatory stand-down at the DZ where a major incident has taken place. Now I am not talking about having a line over, or line twists, but a fatality. In my opinion this time could be used to stop everything and regroup. Find out exactly what happened, post the results (most important) and find a method or solution to prevent this in the future.

Now that being said I have come to make a very hard decision. I cannot support a DZ that hours after a major incident happens they send jumpers back up in the air. In my opinion this is the ultimate slap in the face for the Williams family. It is my own personal decision is to finish my AFF training at Skydive Spaceland and with my current instructor. I trust these guys and have grown to love them. After I complete my AFF I will not be jumping at Spaceland again, until they adopt a stand-down period. I am not looking to start a movement, this is just what I think I need to do personally for the Williams family. This hurts personally because it is such a great facility and the people have really opened there arms to me.



Millina,

I understand and respectfully disagree with your thought process. I think you will find that most other experienced jumpers do as well.

I have been around skydiving my entire life, and have witnessed the after-effects of many fatalities in many locations spanning almost 3 decades. Sometimes (usually small DZ's) the fatality will result in a total shut-down of the operation for the day, especially if the jumper was a well-known and loved regular. Other times (large boogies with hundreds or thousands of attendees) I wasn't even aware of the fatality until days later.

Each of us copes in our own way... some need a day off to regroup and basically do all the things you said, and others need to "get back on the horse" as soon a possible, and do their thinking later. Still others, especially those who have been around awhile, may not seem to react at all, although I assure you they are thinking about it deep down.

Although any fatality or severe injury is tragic, skydiving comes with inherent risk, like many other sports, and when incidents occur it is not necessarily prudent to shut the operation down. Do ski resorts shut down every time someone is killed? What about indy 500 races? Fighting championships? why should skydiving be singled out?

At large facilites (i.e. spaceland) shutting down on a busy day could be quite a financial burden to the owners... those operations can cost thousands of dollars a day in overhead.

Especially in modern times, it is extremely rare that a fatality occurs in a manner that we as a community have not seen before. Many experienced jumpers will not learn anything they don't already know, so why stop them from jumping? If it is truly a new and unique event, chances are it will take days or weeks before we figure out exactly what happened, and in fact sometimes the only person who knows what happened is the deceased.

Rather than shutting down operations following a tragic event that we can do nothing about, it is in my opinion wiser to be proactive; we are better served by providing new and experienced jumpers with opportunities to refresh their memories and learn about new developments in order to prevent incidents. This is the purpose of saftey day, re-currency training, saftey articles in parachutist, ect. It is impossible to quantify the effect of these measures but I assure you they are effective for those who take them seriously.

Your decision to support spaceland or not is of course your own, but I hope you will reconsider. If you stay with the sport for a long time (as I hope you will) I think you will find spaceland to be extremely professional compared to many operations.
"Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission."

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You've reached the proverbial crossraods in your jumping career, and you've reached it really early. Wasn't until I had about 500 ro so jumps that a friend went in, and it was tough. I can't imagine dealing with that at 13 jumps.

Stand down? If you want to go ahead. I don't recommend it nor do I condone it. Strictly personal decision. Either way the next jump will be more difficult than the last...and I'm talking about the ride to altitude, not necessarily the actual jump. Once you're out the door it'll all be OK.
Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

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>Not once do I ever recall any organizer or me (if I was the organizer)
>mention that 'the show must go on'.

Roger mentioned that during one of his formation record attempts between the 200 way and the 300 way. It turned some people off. I've heard Kate give the speech about how they were going to go on with the attempt.

>On one bragging rights record load we stood down for about 2 hours
>while people 'collected their thoughts'.

That seems pretty common.

>I can only think of 7 fatalities associated with record attempts (wr
>or bragging rights) in the 27 years I have been jumping.

Also seems about right. And cut out the last three largest-formation attempts (no fatalities on any of them) and the last women's record (the 2005 record had no fatalities) and you've got those 7 fatalities compressed into about 20 years.

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Also seems about right. And cut out the last three largest-formation attempts (no fatalities on any of them)...



As an aside: wasn't there one during the 100-way CRW preliminary jumps?
SCR #14809

"our attitude is the thing most capable of keeping us safe"
(look, grab, look, grab, peel, punch, punch, arch)

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Personally, this is my opinion, if I ever go in.

Out of respect, don't do anything arrogant like getting on a load while I'm lying there with ambulances around me, but once my family has been notified or I'm at least off the DZ, go make a jump and maybe even dedicate that one skydive to me today. Get right back in the air if that is how you are going to morn my passing, offer me a prayer on the ride to altitude and salute me with your skydive. Use this to remind yourself that life is short and you should try your best to enjoy it. Don't stop jumping because I died. That's definitely not what I would want. Attend safety day and always be thinking about safety and other jumpers around you.

I think it has a lot to do with how you think about the jumps you make that day. If you're standing on the ground getting ill because you can't jump after someone went in, your a piece of shit, but I haven't met any skydivers that would have that kind of attitude. If you think respectfully enough to wait for the hearse to leave with me in it and then get back in the air, then I would be looking down thinking "Hell yea".

If a DZ wants to shut down for the day or the weekend, I'm sure as hell not going to argue. If they don't shut down, all I can say is that I hope they have the respect to wait until things have calmed down and that the DZ possibly huddles up and prays for the passed to rest in peace. Maybe even make a nice 50-way with all the jumpers there to say goodbye.
:)

Rodriguez Brother #1614, Muff Brother #4033
Jumped: Twin Otter, Cessna 182, CASA, Helicopter, Caravan

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I did not read the whole thread but in regards to this stand down period, you have a lot to learn about skydivers and the culture. I can think of no DZ that has a policy like that and I don't think you will find one. Some people choose to stand down and some do not. I personally feel it is better for those that want to, to keep jumping.

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I did not read the whole thread but in regards to this stand down period, you have a lot to learn about skydivers and the culture. I can think of no DZ that has a policy like that and I don't think you will find one. Some people choose to stand down and some do not. I personally feel it is better for those that want to, to keep jumping.



amen

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[...I ditto everything above... except the 'kick me in the nuts' part. If you can find nuts on me, have fun kicking them though :P



OK. Having met you, I gotta say that I would be much more than happy to give you a "nutz check" at any time day or night. Be assured that I would be very thorough and would render a professional opinion that would stand up (no puns intended) in court.

The Dr. is IN.


:D:D;)
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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...While we as jumpers may understand all that we're talking about here, we MUST keep in mind that in todays tandem factory dz's that not everyone around us "GET'S IT" and our actions and words make us look pretty bad in other peoples book...
...All I'm saying is watch what you say and do when this shit goes down, you never know who is on the field and what impression you will make.



Totally agreed. I mean, WTF, it's just plain common sense...a lost art nowadays.
My reality and yours are quite different.
I think we're all Bozos on this bus.
Falcon5232, SCS8170, SCSA353, POPS9398, DS239

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[...I ditto everything above... except the 'kick me in the nuts' part. If you can find nuts on me, have fun kicking them though :P



OK. Having met you, I gotta say that I would be much more than happy to give you a "nutz check" at any time day or night. Be assured that I would be very thorough and would render a professional opinion that would stand up (no puns intended) in court.

The Dr. is IN.


:D:D;)


LOL!!!!! :):D:D Any time I need a personal nuts check on myself, you'll be the first one I call :)

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

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I did not read the whole thread but in regards to this stand down period, you have a lot to learn about skydivers and the culture. I can think of no DZ that has a policy like that and I don't think you will find one. Some people choose to stand down and some do not. I personally feel it is better for those that want to, to keep jumping.



amen



amen

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