JoeBobJumper

After I was sent away, I licked my wounds and largely got over it. But as I feel more a part of the skydiving community it has really bothered me to wonder how many potential licensed jumpers never continue because of some similar situation. New blood licensed jumpers are very important to small DZs. As I planned to post this I also planned to leave out the details that everyone would like to see. The reason is that some DZO might look at that specific situation and know, “We would never do that” and not think about other similar situations that might happen. My real request in the post is for the operators to look for creative ways to stop from making mistakes in who they send away. In my case the DZ management acted in good faith but with bad information and without a reasonable plan/process. A rash decision was allowed to dominate the event. If the DZOs and managers reading this think they have a good policy/process in place, fine. If they wonder if similar mistakes can happen at their DZ and want to look at improving their process, that is wonderful. It took me a long time to decide to post what I did. I knew people would try to turn this into who was right and who was wrong. I am committed to not go there. Sorry for being unresponsive in that area. In a way the first DZ did do me a favor. They forced me to go somewhere else, and after that, going to a third (weather’s bad at home) and a fourth DZ (tunnel/training trip) was not something I was timid about. In all cases I disclosed from the beginning what I had problems with before.

I arrived at the DZ before they were open, ready for my C1 AFF jump. It had been an early start for me and a 4 hour drive, but I always like to be early. The instructors showed up and I started to study the dive plan. Shortly, the head instructor (whom I had never met) asked me to take a walk with him. We talked about my previous jump and then what he said to me left me stunned. “You need to be looking for another sport”, was what he said. What did he say? Is this a joke? I am looking him dead in the eye trying to figure out what to say, or what to do. Hmm, he is serious. My response was, “I don’t want to look for another sport, I want to skydive”. At first I could not tell if he was making a suggestion or telling me I could not jump there. But over the next 30 minutes or so, I was introduced to the operations manager and one of the owners. It became clear I was “out”. I asked for one more jump, but to no avail. The point of this post is not to say I was right, someone else was wrong. The point of the post is to create some benefit for skydiving and maybe help some future jumper(s). If a person is determined to be a jumper, they will continue somewhere else. They will blame the DZ that would not work with them and always have something bad to say about that DZ. Or they may just need some extra help but instead of getting the help they need, they quit and never come back. If that happens, we just lost a jumper. Since that day, I have jumped at 3 other DZs as a student. In more than 20 jumps at these others DZs, there was no problem at all. What happened at the first DZ was a mistake. It was a mistake that could have been avoided. I have spent about $6000 on jumps and equipment in the past 6 months. The first DZ could have had part of that money and could have a better reputation IF they had a plan to allow someone an appeal process. I am sure there are people that really don’t need to be skydiving. I have spoken with a lot of jumpers that say they had a rough start. Do you know for sure that you can tell one from the other? I worry about the next guy like me that comes along at a similar DZ. The DZ thought they were doing the right thing. But I think they needed to do more than just say, “Bye”. I would encourage DZOs to put some policy or program in place to allow some sort of appeal. Share your policy/process with students that you think should not be jumping. Find a way to spend time with them and see what they really want, why, and see if you can help them. Maybe they will agree they don’t need to jump and leave thinking you did them a favor. Or, maybe they will get the help they need and be part of the community. I know a lot of DZs do go out of their way to help troubled students. But even when it looks hopeless, until the student is ready to give it up, please don’t cut them off. Maybe they can’t jump right now, but engage them somehow until the matter is settled in an acceptable way for the student. If they really should not be jumping, educate them as to why so they stop of their own free will. On the waiver of one of the DZs where I have jumped there is a very simple question. It was something like, “Why is it that you think you want to jump from an airplane?” When I saw that a big smile came on my face as I wrote, “A lifelong dream”. Somehow I knew this DZO was my kind of guy.