skymick

Well mine doesnt sound as bad as yours but I managed to break my back in May last year. I think not knowing what exactly will happen in the future is the worst part. For the first week in hospital I was stuck on my back, not even allowed to roll over and didnt have a clue what would happen to me in terms of surgury and recovery. Every day the docs would come in and say we will tell you tomorrow...that was hell, though compared to how long you have to go through it I cant complain I guess I was told to wait until I get all the metal out of my back which could be whenever but I couldnt hold back so i started jumping again a month ago and so far so good... I guess the way I got through it all was I kept imagining that first jump back.. and how it would feel (first jump from height was meant to be a solo but ended up as a 8 way tracking dive ..oh well ) I think the main thing is if you want it enough you will eventually do it, just keep positive and do any rehab you are given. ( I heard that more then enough times when I was stuck on my back but its true)

I gotta say some of you Yanks are soft...whinging about not making the WFFC..think about all us poor foreigners (especially us Aussies) who have to travel half way round the world just to get there...now thats commitment!

hahaha dont tempt me, im tempted enough already! I was so close to putting my name on this list before

Dont apologise, I know what your were talking about...its just too tempting to not reply to it

Yeah us Ozzies are a bunch of thieving pricks, cant trust any of us.

OK I got one problem with the pro packing check list. You have the PC cocked after the canopy in the D-bag, does'nt this mean that some of the canopy can be pinched by the bridle/rapide link inside the D-bag if the kill line inside the D-bag happens to grab some material when it is pulled through the bridle and cause it to rip the canopy on deployment? Would'nt it be better to cock the PC either when you uncollapse the slider or lay the canopy down before bagging it? I have seen this happen myself, someone cocked the PC after bagging the canopy..after he got down found out that there was a 10cm tear in the top skin of the canopy. Anyone want to confirm/clarify the above suggestion? Cheers

I noticed when clicking on my user name to show the profile it shows 301 posts but if i click on show user posts there is only 300. I know ive had one post deleted so im guessing its caused by that, but it seems that only the post numbers in the post list gets updated, not in the profile.

I think you pretty much sum it up perfectly with this line:

hey he never mentioned that! I think feral copped the worst of it anyway . Ill be bringing the back brace along next time im in the spa to be on the safe side though! Yeah that was feral but the sympathy didnt last that long, once I lost the back brace that was it..pack of uncaring bastards!

Show him that thread I mentioned earlier where other people are describing how they came back to jumping after injuring themselves (to show from other people's perspectives) and get him to speak to doc who is also involved in skydiving, normal docs tend to be extremely conservative (which is'nt necessarily a bad thing). If after that he still wont jump then maybe you have to accept that he is still not ready to take up skydiving again. Like skybytch said, its not only a physical thing, its also a mental thing you have to overcome.

Well if the metal is only temporary then I can see the point in waiting due to the extra risk involved but if it aint gonna come out then unless this mate of yours is gonna lock himself in a room the rest of his life I dont see the point in giving up things that you love doing, you just need to take extra precautions. The way I see it I could give up skydiving like I was told to but I could get wiped out in a car crash and be fucked up anyway, so as long as all the risks are taken in to account I dont see a problem. Maybe get his guy to consult a jumper/doctor to get a perspective on the risks invovled. With fusion (mine isnt as bad as his though) you do loose some ability to bend, but my doc told me not to lift too much, dont jump, dont bend and take at least 3 months off work, I didnt listen that much and was back at work a month after the accident and even though i know I should pay more attention to my doc, I can say my back feels great for it. And this guy is playing the pity thing after 7 months?? lucky bastard that only worked for about 3 months with my mates Anyway after saying that if the guy isnt ready to do it then he should'nt. Have a look at this thread to see other views from people with metal inside.... http://www.dropzone.com/cgi-bin/forum/gforum.cgi?post=644159;#644159 Cheers

I busted my L1 vertebrae in May this year, ended up witha chuck of my hip taken out and fused with L1 to rebuild it and 2 rods to support it. The metal is only temporary (should get it out next year sometime). After much thought (2 months worth!) I decided to jump again with it in, I started jumping 2 weeks ago and have about 6 more jumps with no problems so far.... I know the smart thing to do is wait till I get it out, but I had to get back into it and so far im glad i did (though if i hurt myself again im screwed). Dont have any pain at all on jumps, even on deployment (with a safire 2) and landings, if anything packing hurts the most hehe. Before I jumped again I consulted my surgeon (who said no of course) and a jumper/doctor who was a bit more optomistic, of course everyone else I spoke to had an opinion too...found a fair bit of advice on these forums too (from people who previosly hurt themselves) Are you in a similiar situation or just curious?

hmmm..would have to say that split second after an unintentional hook turn..my body would of been just about parallel to the ground..had enough time to think "oh fuck it"....then smack its a pretty funny feeling where u just realised that you monumentally stuffed up and cant do a thing about it... (i broke my back on that one!)

The A license is sequential and the APF membership number is too I think. The first number (or in your case the first 2) is the state ID (VIC is 3) and i think the 46374 is the total sequential number of APF memberships. Im pretty sure thats right anyway

Your spot on there, in real life theer are so many variables that come into play that affect the results, so much so that you could'nt come up with an accurate figure but for a purely theoretical analysis (i.e. not taking into account external variables) then a number like that is fine.

I think you missed the point of Skylark's post, he is no specifically talking about skydiving in real life. Its a purely mathematical question. By this I mean you could describe it by saying 'if you take part in activity X 25,000 (or whatever number) times how likely is it that a certain event Y can occur?' BTW: His theory on it is wrong, but most people have gotten their explanations right so I wont btoher saying why its wrong

I was wondering if excess line from the risers to the first line stow can affect openings? At the moment I have close to a metre (3 ft) of line that I am coiling up at the bottom of the container before putting the Dbag in but I am a bit paranoid that when putting the bag in some of the loose line can go over a line stow and cause a bag lock. Is this possible or will the excess lines not cause any adverse affects on deployment? Cheers

If you ever want to jump again you are going to have to face these fears at some point and the longer you leave it the worse it could get. Anyway if you dont jump tomorrow then you'll be miserable all week wishing that you did. I was out of the sky for 6 months due to injury and lately even thinking about makking a jump had me shit scared but once I got the the DZ and decided I would jump all those fears disappeared and I am so glad I decided to do it, otherwise I reckon I'd be feeling pretty shit right now

Thats an easy one... TOOL, saw both concerts in Melbourne, Aus in 2001, 2002. Couldnt pick the best, they rocked though!

Hey you can't blame the aussies for that one... its those damn Pommies that came up with that one!

Definitely, otherwise all they are good for is compost

Don't bother with d/l ringtones of websites, they are usually crap, the best place to get free ones are in places like yahoo groups etc, people join up to this group and can submit tones/games/apps etc to it so theres usually a large collection on them heres a few i've found (mainly for nokia phones but the ringtones should be universal anyway) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ogznokiaextraz/ damn..cant the the links for the rest of them sorry mate...do a search for other groups on yahoo or msn.com etc and you'll find heaps

Yep thats right, after 6 months, 1 week and 6 days (not that i was counting ) I got back in the air after breaking my back (crushed L1). Right now im full of metal to help rebuild it so there's the slightly elevated risk factor there but after doing 3 jumps this w/e (2 HnP and a tracking jump) the back felt great (packing killed it though). Just like riding a bike...as soon as I got my knees in the breeze it felt like I never left Yahoo!

its that damn hold in the ozone layer... Seriously got no idea what it could be, I doubt its the link to a satellite, generally speaking the received power level from one of those things is in the order of micro Watts (10 -6) so even at that cloud height I can't imagine the power is high enough to affect clouds in that way. If anything the clouds would absorb some of the signal anyway.

Well considering the video in question (Fistful) was released by the ABA and is a very popular video among BASE/skydivers (and rightly so!