Scary story on rec-dot

[Jessica 0]

This is a post from rec.skydiving.
It is crap-your-pants scary. I learned a lot from the thread.
It's the Vicodin™ talking.

[rgoper 0]

i read this the day he posted it, heck of a story. hope his plans for diving again come to fruition. low pulls are bad, don't do that!
Richard
"Gravity Is My Friend"

[diver123 0]

That's waaaaay scary! I hope everything heals well and the jumper doesn't have any furthered suffering. Another reminder that emergency procedures are there for a reason. You MUST have a plan for all situations and rehearse it until it's something that happens almost without thought.
"pull high! It's lower than you think..."

[gale 0]

I'm not trying to comment on this jumpers story in particular as I only wish him a speedy recovery and blue skies in the future...
but, in my training we have the two times rule, try it once, try it again, if you don't get it on the second try - plan b. Would this have helped in this situation? I know he got it out on the third try and then decided not to cutaway because of altitude.
So the lesson here is??? Know your harddeck? Cutaway early? (don't wait)
Gale
Isn't life the strangest thing you've ever seen?

[jurgencamps 0]

Third rule: pull at altitude, not at 2200 ft. I think it is wise to pull at 3000 ft. At 2200 ft you have not much time left after dumping your pc to notice:
1. shit I have a problem
2. which problem
and to
3. solve the problem.
At 2200 ft and at terminal velocity you have 13 sec before impact. This leaves you 8 sec to react (if you activate your reserve at 800-1000 ft) when you have a total malfunction. In her case she has more time, but still you do not have time to waste. So think save and do not pull low
I do not know the USPA regulations but I think that it is common sense that more and more skydivers track away from each other at 4000 ft (or higher) and dump at 3000 ft.
What do you all think of this?

[jtval 0]

apparetnly I read a different post. all I saw was the collapsable slider thing!
Have fun, Live free, SKYDIVE!!
http://community.webshots.com/user/jtval100

[PhreeZone 15]

Scroll up to the top of the thread on the left side of the page.
Kerry is a great guy and most of you have seen his work as he makes Surf Flite skyboards and wake boards in AZ. I hope he recovers quickly.
Drop the tube...DROP the tube...

[kopelen 0]

Read the post and thought of my own mal.
Similar except that mine was a spinning mal from 2200 with line twists from risers to line attachment pts.
I tried kicking out and when I hit 1800 ft i cutaway and had a perfect landing on my reserve.
Alt awareness is the key to survival. A mentor of mine once told me that on every jump always rehearse what you will do in the event of a mal.
bottom line though I hope he recovers and skydives again, I know I also got hurt skydiving just not to that extent.

[skybytch 259]

Quote

Third rule: pull at altitude, not at 2200 ft.

So you're at the bottom of a really great 10 way. You broke off at 4000', turned 180 from the formation and tracked away. As your beeper goes off at 3000' you look down to see someone else from your group (someone who obviously needs work on their break off and track...) waving off beneath you. Whatcha gonna do? Pull at 3000' and risk a collision or take it a little longer and lower before you dump?
Hard and fast rules about pull altitude only work if you're doing solos. If you're jumping with other people, shit can and does happen and you need to be ready to react to it. Personally, I'm going to pull when I have clean air above, below and next to me, whether that's at 3000' (where I'd prefer to dump) or as low as 2000' if I have to go lower to avoid someone else or if (like on many big ways) I've been assigned a lower pull altitude.
pull & flare,
lisa
"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try." - Yoda sez

[jfields 0]

It seems to me that there were a whole lot of steps that could have broken the chain of events that led to his hospitalization.
Pull at appropriate altitude.
No third try on hackey.
If it is that unflyable once open, get rid of it.
Don't pull yourself into a dive if there are other options.
Any jumpers more experienced than me (most of you!) out there want to give this one some more analysis so we can learn some more from it?
I hope he heals well and quickly.
Justin

[DanG 1]

Break off higher on a 10-way is one solution. USPA recommends at least 1500 feet from break-off to deployment, and additional altitude for special jumps, including larger groups. My 4-way team breaks off at 4000. On a 10-way, especially with people who need work on their break-off technique, I would break off at 5000 if I planned on pulling at 3000.
- Dan G

[MarkM 0]

Yeah, but how often do you go down to 2k?
It's really hard to tell from the story whether or not 2200 is his normal deployment altitude. What's sad is that an extra 500 feet could've turned this from a hosipital trip into a typical cutaway story. As it was, he made the best of a bad situation.

[hobbes4star 0]

kerry is a good guy. he makes a hell of a board. i hope he gets back up soon. blue skies buddy and good vibes for a speedy recovery..
"great achievement comes only at great risk" the Dalai Lama

[freeflir29 0]

My only questin is....What in the hell would posess someone that just realized they had a brake popped, then realized they were low....TO PULL ON A FRONT RISER??? Thats just stupid. I popped a brake not long ago. I was a little lower than normal after taking some nice video of Lindsey's opening. The old Stilletto opened pretty nice but then started to spin to the left. I instinctively grabbed the right REAR riser to stabalize everything and took an assesment. It took me a few seconds to figure it out but was no big deal. Popped the other brake....stowed the slider and had a normal flight.
"Here I come to save the BOOBIES!"

[tigra 0]

He acknowledges he made a bad choice, actually a series of them. But he posted his story so other people could learn from it. Kind of brave to post that on wreck skydiving, don't you think???

[LawnDart21 0]

I met Kerry at Quincy 2001 and talked with him about his skyboards for about an hour one day and he came across as a very intelligent person, he's not a yahoo. Remember too, he only had a couple of hundred jumps too, which would attribute to his improper reaction. everyone has a different learning curve, I mean, I just hit 500 jumps last week and I am still learning every time I jump. I think he probablyjust panicked becuase he was so low. It's easy to say "Oh I would have grabbed a rear riser", but none of us were in his shoes at the time to know or to see what was going on. And if he made a rushed decision out of panic, that's not necessarily an act of stupidity if it was done out of reflex. Kerry is a good person in a bad spot right now, commenting that what he did was "stupid" is ill spirited. You were in a similar situation and you reacted differently and you were okay, he made a bad a choice, leave it at that. Keep in mind, anyone with under a 1000 jumps is essentially a newbie in this sport and we are all prone to make mistakes. Let's all just focus on the positive by learning from his mistake and sending positive energy his way.
"I live to EFS"
Tom

[freeflir29 0]

Sorry....didn't mean to dog the guy and I'm glad he shared the story. I grab my rear risers EVERY time I open my parachute. My hands go to them as soon as I'm upright in the harness. It just seemed bizarre to me that someone would do that. I guess he wasn't in this habit.
"Here I come to save the BOOBIES!"

[skybytch 259]

Quote

On a 10-way, especially with people who need work on their break-off technique, I would break off
at 5000 if I planned on pulling at 3000.

Okay, let me rephrase the question. Say you broke off from that sweet 10 way at 5000', turned and tracked and, despite your care in choosing your fellow jumpers on this load and your skill at tracking far, flat and fast, at 3000' you saw someone below you waving off. Whatcha gonna do?

Quote

Yeah, but how often do you go down to 2k?

I've been under canopy (according to my ProTrack) at between 2000' and 2500' on the majority of my last 90 jumps, pulling between 2500' and 3500'. I've dumped between 2000' and 2500' on maybe 10-15 of those jumps, mostly because I was told not to deploy above 2500' (big ways); a couple of times because, despite my care in choosing my fellow jumpers and my skill at turning 180 from the center of the formation and tracking fast, flat and far, at 3000' I saw someone below me waving off.
pull & flare,
lisa
"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try." - Yoda sez

[LawnDart21 0]

That's cool Clay, I wasn't flamin' ya, I just feel terrible for Kerry. Like you, every jump, my first reaction, good canopy/diving spin/etc, is to grab the rear risers and level out. It's ashame that Kerry had to learn the hard way.
"I live to EFS"
Tom

[wildblue 4]

Quote

So as I reflect back on all of this it is the typical accident. That is, not 1 thing went wrong, but a series of events that when compiled lead to me nearly dying.

I don't think there was a lot of things that "went wong" ... I think there were just a lot of bad decisions. I think everyone's pretty much covered those though.
Another argument for better risers - get a closed top-keeper so your slider can't "fire" a toggle (which I assume is what he meant by fired his right brake line)
Anyone know how many jumps he had when this happened?
love is a mystery to all, save the poets