The Ground Is Hard

This is an accurate story, at least from my perspective, of my first and maybe last venture into skydiving. Some may say “you are nuts” and “how could you do that” but I say “yup, you’re right” and “I’m still not sure”. If I do have the pleasure of skydiving again I have no doubt I’ll forget every lesson I learned the first time.

I was sitting at dinner when I asked Brandi what he wanted for his sixteenth birthday. Turning sixteen is a big deal in American culture so I figured he would respond indeterminately and we would go about our lives fat, dumb and happy. When he said “skydiving!” it struck me as something I would have said just to get a reaction, never expecting anyone to take me seriously. Well, not to be outdone by a soon to be sixteen year old, I told him Boeing has a skydiving club and I’d look into it. I wasn’t sure if I saw pleasure or panic on his face but there was a little of both running through my own head.

The next day I searched the Boeing intranet for the skydiving club but could only find a link to a person, not a club. Come to find out the owner of the airfield from which the club used to jump had a heart attack and died leaving the club without a jump site. I failed to ask if the owner was jumping at the time. I emailed the person associated with the club and he directed me to Kapowsin Air Sports (http://www.skydivenet.com/kapowsin/) who I contacted to get the details for a first jump.

The day of the jump we (Brandi, Randilinn, Jim, Nick and me) got on the road at 8:00am heading south toward Puyallup. It seems Kapowsin is this dinky town in the middle of nowhere so nobody can hear you scream when you let go of the plane. I’m still not sure how I’m going to react when the moment of truth arrives. With my fear of heights and occasional vertigo I wasn’t sure if I would simply freeze and not let go of the plane or start vomiting. Neither a pretty site and only time would tell.

We arrived at the jump site a little early so the kids wandered off to pet the horses corralled nearby. There was a miniature which was pretty cute so they tried to get it’s attention, which they eventually did. One of the horses seemed jealous and tried to keep any other horse away from the kids but perseverance paid off and they all got to pet the little one. They named it “MiniPony”. Not terribly unique but it would suffice.

Inside the building where we would be trained was a soft landing target about 20 feet in diameter with which the boys fell in love. They spent quite a lot of time diving onto it trying to catch a football. I expected one of them to break an arm or leg before we even got off the ground but no such luck.

The room was quite cold as is to be expected in February so one of the owners decided to start the pellet stove. He had trouble getting the fire to catch so he poured in a little Everclear and hit it with a propane torch for a while. If this is how they start fires in this joint I’m not sure I want to know if they also push hesitant people out of the plane. I saw one poster in the room that said “My drinking club has a skydiving problem”. This was not reassuring.

For four hours we were taught the basics of skydiving, everything being repeated many times so our muscle memory would kick in when our mind shuts off. To tell if the parachute is deployed properly the saying is: “Rectangular in shape, Slider down, Flying straight”. Here is a picture of the parts of a parachute system:

Randilinn and me waiting for the big jump

Outside of the building was the fuselage of a plane similar to the one from which we were to jump. One by one the jumpmaster (Tom) had us get into the plane and practice the routine. This is broken into four steps: 1) sit on the edge 2) do you see the landing site? 3) climb out on the wing 4) GO! Once you step off the plane (and let go of the wing strut) you are to arch your back with your hands flung out to the side and say “Arch one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand, six thousand, check, clear”. At the “check” stage look over your shoulder and make sure the parachute has deployed as this is your top priority, then reach up to grab the risers pushing them away from each other to clear any twisted lines. This often involves bicycle kicking your way in a circle until the lines clear. We practiced this over and over and over and over and over. Seemed a little silly at the time but more on that later.

Inside we practiced jumping off chairs and rolling in case we hit the ground hard. It’s not as easy as it looks and the least of your worries when the ground is coming at you at high speed. Screaming seems an alternate procedure but probably not as effective.

Then came time to get strapped into an uncomfortable fake parachute rig and hang from the ceiling while Tom put pictures above our heads of what we might see, good and bad, and react to each picture. Nick went first as he looked like he was falling asleep. Once strapped in and hoisted a few feet off the ground Tom grabbed Nick and flung him out and in a circle completely winding his risers. Nick didn’t panic but he did wake up in time to eventually clear the risers. At this point I was thinking it took an awfully long time to get the risers unwound and, surely, the real thing isn’t that difficult. After all, people have been doing this for years and it should all be automated by now.

We all went through a similar ordeal with the spinning and clearing and pictures above our heads. No big deal, really. When do we get to jump?

Two other guys in our class got to jump first, the first one landing quite well but the second ended up in the trees. Tom had told us to cross our arms, placing our hands in our arm pits in the event we flew into the trees so as not to skewer any vital organs with broken branches. Not something you want to hear from any sport. Luckily, the guy didn’t actually hit any trees and was just a bit wet since it had started raining.

Randilinn and me waiting for the big jump

Randilinn and I were next but had to wait for a break in the weather. Some people don’t get to jump their first day because inclement weather so we were hoping for a window of opportunity. It only took about ten minutes for the rain to stop but the boys weren’t paying much attention. They were still jumping on the landing mat catching a football.

As Ran, Tom and I walked out to the plane it didn’t feel scary at all. My biggest fear was my vertigo kicking in and getting nauseous. I’d really hate to get this far and have to back out because I got sick. I didn’t take any of my anti-nausea medication because it makes me sleepy and I wanted to be wide awake. In the end I didn’t have any vertigo problems at all.

I climbed into the plane last as I was to be the first one out due to my weighing more than Ran. It was a bit cramped in the plane but no big deal, the view was wonderful as the rain storm moved across the valley and mountains around us. There were more lakes than I expected even though we had been shown a picture from this height during training. For me it was just a leisurely ride around the valley to take in the view. Above the noise of the plane engine Tom signaled to me to check that the line was attached to the plane, which I knew was my responsibility but it still wasn’t real. Then the plane slowed down and Tom opened the door. As the wind caught it there was a violent wham as it flung upward against the wing. The doorway was now the only thing separating me from not being in the plane!

Tom had told us that when we got to this point we would forget absolutely everything he had just taught us. Intellectually I knew this was normal but it struck me like a rock in the head that I was woefully unprepared! “Wait, maybe I shouldn’t jump. But if I don’t jump will the kids jump? Who cares about the kids, maybe I shouldn’t jump”. All this going through my head as my muscle memory kicked in and I pushed my feet passed the wind barrier to sit on the edge of the plane. It was all very surreal. Did I see the target? Yup, it’s right there 3000 feet down. There it is standing like a beacon in the dark. Boy, what a great target. I love that target. Whatever happens aim for the target! Crawl out to the wing? What are you nuts? But out I went, my body taking over when my mind cowered in the corner. The wind is whipping past my ears and trying to pry me off the wing. I still hadn’t let go of the plane so at least there was still some hope I would live. Actually, it wasn’t as scary standing on the edge of the wing as I thought it would be. There was a part of me that seemed to think this was perfectly normal. For a split second the thought ran through my mind I was supposed to step off the wing and let go and there would be no means of return. You can’t skydive half way, either you let go or you don’t. How would I react when the moment came? Before I could think about that and possibly come to my senses Tom said GO! And I did.

The best way I can describe the feeling of letting go of the plane is if you practiced all day in your back yard, just for fun, to stand in the middle of a road while your friends drove a cardboard car at you until you got bored and stopped flinching. Then they said “now go do it for real and you won’t be hurt, really”. For some unknown reason you stand in the middle of a road, except it’s the freeway, and a car is coming right at you, but it’s a Mack truck, and you let it go right through you. Insanity!

I had expected to panic at this point and try to climb back to the plane like a drowning man grasping at straw in the water. But somehow or another the training stayed in my head and I yelled “arch!” and began my six second countdown. Now, on TV or in the movies, you see divers smiling and giving the camera a thumbs up as they gracefully glide through the air like a windblown superhero. You don’t experience the complete shutdown of all that is sacred and holy when you are literally falling from the sky. There is no plane to fly, no car to drive, no boat to steer; you are totally and completely on your own and you are falling. I can’t understate that you are falling! Now I know why they call it a drop zone.

There are only two directions: down and everywhere else. It crosses my mind there is something I’m missing – oh yah, it’s a parachute. What happened to my parachute! I left it on the ground while not taking the training seriously enough. Oh my God, I don’t know how to do this and there is nobody that can help me. Nobody! Think. The parachute is supposed to deploy automatically from the static line I just left in the plane. I’m counting to six, good, I’m supposed to do that. I don’t know why and I don’t care but I know I’m supposed to do that and I’m not dead yet so I’ll keep going until I reach six. Ok, there is six. I can’t die like this. I refuse to die like this but if I’m going to live to tell myself never to do this again there must be something else I should do. The toggles! I have to reach up and grab the toggles. Toggles are life and life is top priority. If I just grab those toggles I might be ok. My fear of heights won’t allow me to tilt my head back enough to see the toggles. Not that I don’t want to, my body simply refuses. I must tilt my head back! There are the toggles and I didn’t go into a vertigo seizure. Good enough, grab the toggles. But, what if I accidentally let go of one of the toggles and the wind whips it out of reach? Take your time and get it right, there is no second chance. I’ve got the toggles, now pull down hard twice to make sure the canopy is fully open. Done. Why is the ground spinning…?

In hind sight my mistake was forgetting to clear any twists in the risers but considering I was in the throws of crisis management I forgive myself. This was the first time I remember actually seeing the parachute. I knew it had to be there because I was slowing down but at the time I didn’t care what shape it was in as long as I was slowing down that proved to me all was not lost. But why was the ground spinning so fast below me, and the parachute spinning so fast above me in the opposite direction? The voice from the radio strapped to my chest, which I could now hear, was saying “Stop spinning! Stop Spinning!”. I couldn’t talk back since the conversation was one way so explaining that I couldn’t stop the spinning and asking advice was not an option. I pried my head back far enough to see a sight I’ll never forget: the risers were twisted about three feet in length above me. I grabbed the risers and pushed them apart but the parachute continued to spin, twisting the risers further. If this continued, and by all indications I had no way to stop it, I feared the risers would become so twisted the canopy would collapse leaving me with no control and falling too fast to survive. A decision had to be made and I had to make it, now. If I pulled the reserve chute below 1000 feet it wouldn’t have time to open and there would be nothing left but the eulogy. I slipped my thumbs into the reserve chute release and took one last deep breath to give me a scant few seconds to make one last review of the situation. If this didn’t work nothing could be done. Period.

I yanked down and out with both my arms and started falling like someone had pulled a chair out from under me. But I kept falling! The main chute had detached from my harness and I was falling. This was not an improvement! Then the reserve chute opened my fall slowed. I must have reached up and cleared the risers and grabbed the toggles but I was just glad to have stopped falling to think about it. Listening to the radio and following directions I made a few turns to setup for the landing not having had any time to “fly” the chute into a better position. I was coming in exactly backwards to the way you are supposed to (with a tailwind) but didn’t care. Here comes mother earth. Oops, just missed that small lake. Good, Tom said not to land in the water, and, if you did don’t drown. Good advice. People need more advice like this. I don’t think I have enough altitude to make it all the way over there to the landing site. But I missed the lake. Turn. Turn. Steady. No big deal. Way off course. Flair. Wham! Gotta drag myself onto my feet. The ground is hard.

I landed in a muddy area somewhat like a bog, the chute dragging me forward a few feet until I could get my legs under me. My ankles hurt, a lot. One hand hurts but not too bad. I’m on the ground and want to stay there, not move. But we had been trained to grab the lines and walk toward the chute, pushing the slider up the lines until we could gather the chute into a pile and pick it up. While doing so the radio blared “give us a sign you are ok”. So I raised my hand but really want to raise a single finger at this point. A few minutes later the truck pulled up near me and I walked the chute and myself over to the road and piled in the back for a ride to the jump site. My ankles hurt and were covered with mud and I was breathing harder than I expected, but at least I was still breathing.

When the truck dropped me off and we disengaged my harness I searched the sky for Randilinn. My God, she was about to go through the same thing! I hope she lives. Ok, there she is. Doing pretty well. Turning. Turning. Coming in for a landing. Flair. Right on the target pile of pea gravel! Excellent landing. Let go of the chute. Pull down on one of your toggles. The wind is trying to drag her off. Pull down on one of your toggles. Let go of one of the toggles. Ok, that collapsed the canopy. She’s ok. Whew! Only three more to go.

The guys were too busy getting their parachutes on properly to see much of what had just transpired. But now it was their turn and they headed toward the plane. Jim was first, Brandi second, Nick third. It’s horrifying knowing these guys don’t have any idea the terror they are about to go through and I have no way to fully explain it.

The boys heading toward the plane: Jim, Nick, Brandi

The plane slows into jump position and I can just make out someone climbing onto the strut through the telephoto lens of my movie camera. Will they jump? Will they panic? Will the chute open? Will I have to explain to their parents it’s not too late to have another child? Something is dropping from the plane. Good, it’s Jim and his chute is opening. It’s open, rectangular in shape, slider down and flying straight. The ground controller talks Jim into a few turns and he seems to get the hang of it. Gee, it looks a lot easier from down here.

While Jim is busy sailing around the drop zone Brandi is about to jump. The plane slows and I see him climb out onto the strut. He drops. His chute opens. Excellent! His risers are twisted but he pushes them apart and bicycle kicks in a circle until they untangle. This just proves evolution is possible as his dad missed this part. He looks good as the controller guides him through a few practice turns. Jim is coming in for a landing so Brandi now has time to sail around for a while. Jim’s approach looks good. Turn. Turn. Flair. Wham! He missed the target by only a few feet but landed pretty hard on his bum. He’s ok, though.

Brandi positions for landing but is yelling “mini-pony!” for no particular reason. He may have hit his head on the tail of the plane but, then again, maybe not. Turn. Turn. Flair. He is going back up! Only Brandi. Ok, now he is descending again. Wham! He’s on the ground and he is alive and not hurt. Both my kids lived through the experience. Looks like he had fun, too. Big smile on his face; may have been the terror.

Brandi preparing to flare for landing

I can see Nick out on the plane strut, and off he goes. His chute is trailing above him but not opening. Open you stupid chute! Two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, five thousand, six thousand. Ok, there it goes, it’s open. He may live yet. The controller guides him through some practice turns and lets him sail around until he is ready to position for landing. He’s coming in about right. Turn. Turn. Flair. Touchdown, stumble, stumble, walk, grin. Now wait a minute! Where is the earth shattering kaboom! It’s not the first time I’ve seen Nick walk away from disaster but at least he could have the courtesy of doing it while we are not looking.