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shah269

More students getting hurt.

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Students getting hurt?
Is it me or are more and more students getting hurt over the past two years?
I'm a N00B and I'll be there for a while and I'm ok with that but talking to many of the local students I've noticed a very odd trend just in my circle of the world, students are getting hurt.
From a hard lading causing tib fib fractures and dislocated elbows to hard ladings causing herniated discs and broken tail bones.
Does anyone keep track of these things or is it just an
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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Does anyone keep track of these things or is it just an

yes, it's just an :)

sorry just an accepted part of life?
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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Some students have always gotten hurt.
Nature of the sport (or any sport).
Compared to the old days, many less student injuries, a lot more experienced injuries.
As for you, yes, more people you know are getting hurt in the sport. Why?
Probably because you know more people.
No one I knew got injured or killed the first year or so I was in the sport. Now, not a year goes by that someone I know isn't injured or killed.
Is the sport less safe or do I just know a LOT more people in it?
This is the paradox of skydiving. We do something very dangerous, expose ourselves to a totally unnecesary risk, and then spend our time trying to make it safer.

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In the old days when students jumped mil-surp rounds that landed harder, there were a lot of leg injuries. But getting killed under a perfectly good round canopy above your head was practically unheard of. Today, square canopies land a lot softer and more accurately, and get you back from a long spot. But they require more skill, and there's a lot more potential to get broken or killed from a canopy collision, bad flare, dropped toggle, low turn, etc. So to some degree, it might be a trade-off.

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More in the last two years in your experience? Relative to what? That third year you have in the sport?

Statistical significance of any sort is difficult to come by in this sport. Statistical significance in your even smaller corner of the world and very short timeframe is even harder to come by (IIRC you jump at a small DZ and haven't visited too many other DZs).

So maybe your DZ is having a bad run of it. Or maybe they've always had that rate of student injuries but since you're just there you're seeing it really for the first time. But trying to come up with some trend out of that when you've got nothing but anecdotal evidence seems a little specious.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

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More in the last two years in your experience? Relative to what? That third year you have in the sport?

Statistical significance of any sort is difficult to come by in this sport. Statistical significance in your even smaller corner of the world and very short timeframe is even harder to come by (IIRC you jump at a small DZ and haven't visited too many other DZs).

So maybe your DZ is having a bad run of it. Or maybe they've always had that rate of student injuries but since you're just there you're seeing it really for the first time. But trying to come up with some trend out of that when you've got nothing but anecdotal evidence seems a little specious.


specious, I just love that word!!!
This is the paradox of skydiving. We do something very dangerous, expose ourselves to a totally unnecesary risk, and then spend our time trying to make it safer.

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just an accepted part of life?



At the end of the day, yes, it has to be an accepted part of life.

At the beginning of the day, that's another story. Students are trained in the correct way to conduct a skydive, and a good instructor won't gear up any student who doesn't appear to 'get it'. Not just pass the test, or be able to recite some BS, but actually 'get' the point of the instruction.

With that in mind, you can see that nobody wants a student to get hurt, or is willing to just 'see what happens'. A good faith effort is made to teach them the right things to do, but with little to no previous experience, it's tough to say the what the right things are (for that individual) and if they'll actually make use of the training.

I've heard of a guy who busted his leg very early on in his jumpng carreer. How did that happen? Wasn't he taught how to flare and PLF? Why didn't he do what he was told?

In an odd twist of fate, this time around you're much better equipped to answer your question than just about anyone esle. Why do students and newbies do the dumb things they do? What is it that makes them leave all of their training behind, and just proceed in some other fashion?

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In Finland you also need to report any incident (every time you use your reserve, there is an incident that requires medical care, anything unusual with your gear, anything that compromised jumping safety or could've developed into something serious). The data is then anonymized and compiled into a statistics that is available.

Vaaratilannekooste 2011 (its all in Finnish but there is plenty of graphs)

Page 37 jumps per injury (blue is students, red is SL students).
Page 38 type of injury (green is other, red is sprain, blue is fracture)
Page 44 student injuries by jumps (green is > 10, red is 6-10, blue is 1-5 jumps)
Your rights end where my feelings begin.

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In the UK, we keep track.


How is it?
Just wondering?
Are the numbers going up or down?

For me I know it's just due to knowing more people thus yes my numbers are way off.

thus asking and just wondering.
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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In the old round static line days, my FJC instructor expected a 10% injury rate with every first jump course. Later, when I became an instructor, I tracked my injury rate, sprained ankle or worse. I worked like a dog to get it down to about 4%. Zero injuries always eluded me.

Square canopies sharply reduced our injury rate for all but the worst students. AAD's made our student fatality rate drop to almost zero. I definitely don't miss the old days. :)

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As skydiving becomes more "mainstream" older, less fit, and less athletic people participate. When you get older, you get hurt more. If you are out of shape, you can't be as active without risking injury. and if you are not athletic (I almost wrote coordinated instead) then you have a higher chance of making a mistake.

Very few 80 year olds made a static line round first jump.
Very few grossly out of shape people made a static line round jump.
Very few uncoordinated people made a static line round jump.

Add more people jumping, older people jumping, less fit people jumping, and less athletic people jumping and accidents are sure to rise.

Add in that a student canopy of today would be considered ultra high performance 30 years ago and high performance 20 years ago.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334

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