0
coreyangel

Safety violations, what's next?

Recommended Posts

I am gathering information for a paper I'm writing. The subject is what should be done after a skydiving incident is observed? I am asking people to give me not only ideas of what they think should happen, but also things they have witnessed (both good and bad). Please feel free to discuss openly on this thread the only rules are:

1) Please do not attack anyone. let's have a free and open discussion even if we don't agree with someone.

2) Please, no finger pointing at someone. When I write my paper I will not use names or quote anyone directly. If you want to PM me directly, feel free to.
Learn from others' mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.
POPS 10672

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Good point. I would actually like to discuss both. A lot of safety violations (not every one) result in incidents and can even lead to tragic accidents. let's discuss every aspect. Do you have any ideas you would like to bring to the table?
Learn from others' mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.
POPS 10672

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Good point. I would actually like to discuss both. A lot of safety violations (not every one) result in incidents and can even lead to tragic accidents. let's discuss every aspect. Do you have any ideas you would like to bring to the table?



I would disagree. I think the number of incidents is remarkably low given the high number of safety violations.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Good point. I would actually like to discuss both. A lot of safety violations (not every one) result in incidents and can even lead to tragic accidents. let's discuss every aspect. Do you have any ideas you would like to bring to the table?



Dude, it's your paper. I think you might need a slightly more focused line of questioning than every aspect of any form of safety violation and/or incident...
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Quote

Good point. I would actually like to discuss both. A lot of safety violations (not every one) result in incidents and can even lead to tragic accidents. let's discuss every aspect. Do you have any ideas you would like to bring to the table?



Dude, it's your paper. I think you might need a slightly more focused line of questioning than every aspect of any form of safety violation and/or incident...


I'm just collecting data at this point Jakee ;) Please tell me about a particular safety violation you saw and how it was handled.
Learn from others' mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.
POPS 10672

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

>What are some of the most common safety violations you've see? How were they handled?

Orla didn't track far enough from me on one dive. After the dive I said "hey Orla, could you track a little further?" She said "OK, sorry."



From what i've heard from other people, that happens a lot. Let me ask you, was just pointing it out and telling Orla about it enough to prevent this from happening again? There are people that would say that Orla should have been grounded for a day. What do you think? Do you think that just telling the person what they did wrong is enough?
Learn from others' mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.
POPS 10672

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
>Let me ask you, was just pointing it out and telling Orla about it enough to prevent
>this from happening again?

Yes, at least for a few weeks.

>There are people that would say that Orla should have been grounded for a day.

Of course there are. But such things are better handled one-on-one in my experience.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

What are some of the most common safety violations you've see? How were they handled?



Jumper sniveled past the front of my canopy ... and I do mean RIGHT in front of my canopy no more than 12 feet away.

I introduced myself, "Hi, I'm Tim. Nice colorful parachute you have there. Soooooo, how many seconds separation did you give?" and then asked, what type of flying, etc....

After the conversation, the jumper understood exit separation (no matter how much the tandem masters in the back are yelling go), freeflying and directional control as a newbie skydiver. The best plus was the jumper understood that someone doesn't have to be a dick and yell at someone for making their first big mistake of their career that ended without consequence. It scared them enough as it was. I simply got a good very close up shot of a human falling past in terror.

Later, I was given a beer for the education and for not yelling. It was also for not punching. The guy was certain I was walking over to kick his ass.
My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Of course there are. But such things are better handled one-on-one in my experience.



That has been my experience too. I also believe that the person you are dealing with should be a factor. A friend who made a mistake vs. someone new who is just learning. The new guy might actually need instruction vice just a reminder. You said that it prevented it from happening again for a few weeks. Do you think anything should have been done different? Why or why not?
Learn from others' mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.
POPS 10672

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Jumper sniveled past the front of my canopy ... and I do mean RIGHT in front of my canopy no more than 12 feet away.

I introduced myself, "Hi, I'm Tim. Nice colorful parachute you have there. Soooooo, how many seconds separation did you give?" and then asked, what type of flying, etc....

After the conversation, the jumper understood exit separation (no matter how much the tandem masters in the back are yelling go), freeflying and directional control as a newbie skydiver. The best plus was the jumper understood that someone doesn't have to be a dick and yell at someone for making their first big mistake of their career that ended without consequence. It scared them enough as it was. I simply got a good very close up shot of a human falling past in terror.

Later, I was given a beer for the education and for not yelling. It was also for not punching. The guy was certain I was walking over to kick his ass.



I think you made a very good point about "not being a dick" I personally think our message is better received when we correct, not criticize. If you don't mind my asking, were you a rated instructor at the time and if so, do you think the other skydiver took you more seriously because you were?
Learn from others' mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.
POPS 10672

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

in reply to "There are people that would say that Orla should have been grounded for a day. "
...................................

One of the basic pursuits of skydiving is learning how to do it...continually......there is no point when you can say that you have really mastered this sport.
I'd love some-one to stand up and say they have .:) I'd truly like to meet the fool.

When people make mistakes generally the best thing is to encourage them to learn how to do it properly ie safely.
Repeated mistakes of a serious enough nature require grounding so the person can learn lessons safely on the ground instead of not learning them dangerously in the air.... just like when we begin.

My suggestion for your study is to explore the train of events that lead to an incident.
Some people dodge the major problems and have long injury free experiences.
Many others get injured out. some quickly, some drag it out for a while.
Emulating the long term survivors may seem boring to some people but in my experience then they're dead or seriously injured....so ?

are we learning in a professional or amateurish manner?

The discipline after the incident is important but should focus on determining the cause of the incident and then eliminating the factors that led to that incident.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

I am gathering information for a paper I'm writing. The subject is what should be done after a skydiving incident is observed? I am asking people to give me not only ideas of what they think should happen, but also things they have witnessed (both good and bad). Please feel free to discuss openly on this thread the only rules are:

1) Please do not attack anyone. let's have a free and open discussion even if we don't agree with someone.

2) Please, no finger pointing at someone. When I write my paper I will not use names or quote anyone directly. If you want to PM me directly, feel free to.




Jim opened too close to Betty; Tom landed in the wrong direction; Bill took out a 6 way because he came in too hot; Jenny screwed up on her swoop turn; Tom pulled too low.

These examples can be regularly observed at a typical large DZ during a normal weekend of jumping.

You can be sure that any and all of these mistakes would be immediately addressed if it was Navy Seal or Armed Forces training, but outspoken individuals are rare here, probably because they tend to be unpopular with the rest of the jumpers.

Though any and all of these can result in serious injuries or fatality, my observations show most are simply shrugged or laughed off.

In 40 years of Skydiving, I have only seen a couple of instances (myself being one) where a DZ Operator grounded someone for the day.

This 1 day penalty should probably be the norm, but it should have been implemented long ago and any DZ who exercises this kind of punishment may lose business.

Good Luck
You live more in the few minutes of skydiving than many people live in their lifetime

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

Quote

Quote

Good point. I would actually like to discuss both. A lot of safety violations (not every one) result in incidents and can even lead to tragic accidents. let's discuss every aspect. Do you have any ideas you would like to bring to the table?



Dude, it's your paper. I think you might need a slightly more focused line of questioning than every aspect of any form of safety violation and/or incident...


I'm just collecting data at this point Jakee ;) Please tell me about a particular safety violation you saw and how it was handled.


One guy got too deep in to the corner and broke his femur. In the short term, some of our resident doctors went and did doctory things in the LZ and DZ control called an ambulance. In the longer term, people took the piss out of him constantly while his cast was on. He's not broken his other femur yet since he started jumping again so maybe it worked.
Do you want to have an ideagasm?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Thanks Jakee, I appreciate your input. I understand that accidents will happen and some are unavoidable, but when he broke his femur, was this one of those one time errors in judgement, or could this have been prevented? If you think it could have been prevented, what do you think should have been done?
Learn from others' mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.
POPS 10672

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

OK coreyangel I've reread exactly what you're after and will fess up.

When I was young and stupid I was grounded about 5 times and disciplined otherwise on countless occassions.
Even though I had done stupid stuff the person actually grounding me was always polite but firm, there was no discussion, just them telling me that I was grounded , usually immediately in front of the whole DZ.

I never hurt any-one (including myself) during these incidents.

The people grounding me knew what they were doing.
I was being grounded to prevent injury to myself and others, and to NOT set a new standard of careless recklessness.

On rare occassions verbal threats or actual physical contact occurred but more to assert dominance than to injure. These people had no DZ power to ground meB|

If one of the highly experienced jumpers ever put me in my youthful place by chasticing or talking to me, it truly sunk in cause they rarely spoke to me.

Just about every person that dished up rough love during my youth is high on my list of people I truly respect. They had the strength of character to say it how it was or at least how they saw it. Priceless .

Without that type of truth, skydiving can easily become needlessly dangerous.

Non- grounding discipline included cleaning out the peas , sweeping out the floors, (I refused to clean toilets except from a distance, with a hose:|), Sometimes I had to pack every parachute left unpacked at the end of a weekend .

Over time there wasn't much about a DZ I didn't know from first hand tidying up. Gotta love a tidy DZ.
My punishments had educated me.

Sadly under the same treatment many friends went pioneer base jumping and got dead or injured out.

Over time I've noticed a general reduction in disciplinary actions.
The tactics of some have got a bit nasty at times. eg one little group that didn't like me tried to drug my beer .
why?
I had laughed at an AFF tape when I genuinely couldn't tell who was the student. Amoungst old friends? no worries , amoungst those newbies? end of their world.
:)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote

OK coreyangel I've reread exactly what you're after and will fess up.

When I was young and stupid I was grounded about 5 times and disciplined otherwise on countless occassions.
Even though I had done stupid stuff the person actually grounding me was always polite but firm, there was no discussion, just them telling me that I was grounded , usually immediately in front of the whole DZ.

I never hurt any-one (including myself) during these incidents.

The people grounding me knew what they were doing.
I was being grounded to prevent injury to myself and others, and to NOT set a new standard of careless recklessness.

On rare occassions verbal threats or actual physical contact occurred but more to assert dominance than to injure. These people had no DZ power to ground meB|

If one of the highly experienced jumpers ever put me in my youthful place by chasticing or talking to me, it truly sunk in cause they rarely spoke to me.

Just about every person that dished up rough love during my youth is high on my list of people I truly respect. They had the strength of character to say it how it was or at least how they saw it. Priceless .

Without that type of truth, skydiving can easily become needlessly dangerous.

Non- grounding discipline included cleaning out the peas , sweeping out the floors, (I refused to clean toilets except from a distance, with a hose:|), Sometimes I had to pack every parachute left unpacked at the end of a weekend .

Over time there wasn't much about a DZ I didn't know from first hand tidying up. Gotta love a tidy DZ.
My punishments had educated me.

Sadly under the same treatment many friends went pioneer base jumping and got dead or injured out.

Over time I've noticed a general reduction in disciplinary actions.
The tactics of some have got a bit nasty at times. eg one little group that didn't like me tried to drug my beer .
why?
I had laughed at an AFF tape when I genuinely couldn't tell who was the student. Amoungst old friends? no worries , amoungst those newbies? end of their world.
:)


That's not discipline, it's a Code Red!

That's the truth, but YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!
It's all been said before, no sense repeating it here.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Quote


When I was young and stupid I was grounded about 5 times and disciplined otherwise on countless occassions.
Even though I had done stupid stuff the person actually grounding me was always polite but firm, there was no discussion, just them telling me that I was grounded , usually immediately in front of the whole DZ.



You said that you were grounded and there was no discussion. May I ask, did they try to teach you what went wrong or did you have to figure that part out for yourself?
Learn from others' mistakes, you will never live long enough to make them all yourself.
POPS 10672

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

0