Newbies and choking

[firstime 0]

I went thru a cloud last year, (should not have gotten
out) but as I was falling thru it, I was holding my breath and didnt realize until I was clear. Then I was gasping only to realize I was holding my breath while
falling thru this potential doom. It was only about 5 or 6 seconds but felt like 5 or 6 DAYS. I will never and I repeat NEVER put myself there again. Just breath thru it all.

[coolmansr 0]

Hi
I didnt have problem breathing on my tandem/aff jumps but a friend of mine who made his tandem 2 weeks ago had problem breathing and you can see it in his video that he's searching for air like putting both his hands on his mouth trying to breath. that was for almost the half of the freefall after that he seems ok

here's the link of his video if you wanna have a look

http://www.coolmansr.ca/albums/skydiving_psxmaster/Skydiving_Free_Fall_First_Jump_Tandem_psxmaster.mpg

coolmansr

[darrenspooner 0]

The panic theory (at least one of them) is called the False Alarm hypothesis. All it really means is that people catastrophically misinterpret normal bodily sensations or events. In freefall many people experience a change in the breathing experience. When you've got 120mph racing into an open mouth it gives a sensation of breathlessness. Then, people start to worry that the breathlessness actually means they won't be able to breath. Then they get more fearful, then they get more anxiety symptoms such as chest tightness, hyperventilation, dizziness. Add into all this the usual sensations of sensory overload and people get to a point of feeling physiologically out of control and being dangerously out of breath, hence full on panic attack.

We know the theory fits for most panickers, regardless of the situation. But my only real question with this paper is that it suggests real panic is common in novice skydivers and occurs as a result of not being able to breath in freefall. Lots of people have the sensation of not being able to breath, but unless they misinterpret that as somehow being dangerous then they are not going to panic.

So, if you think you can't breath in freefall, close your mouth and breath through your nose and try to just see the sensation as resulting from rapid airflow into the mouth and a tight chest strap, rather than seeing it as a catastrophic shortage of air.

***Die with your boots on

[piisfish 135]

i had around 40secs freefall through a cloud, and I will not repeat this jump...
But you can breathe inside a cloud, even if it is snowing inside

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM