If it doesn't feel right (reserve ride story)
Tina Marie
I'd always been told - "If it doesn't feel right, don't jump". And I
always thought it was just an excuse...
It was a beautiful Friday evening. Winds were perfect for the tower -
light on the ground, right between the wires. There was plenty of
moon, the landing area was huge and soft - there was no reason
not to jump. Except that it just didn't feel right - at all. I was so
terrified that I couldn't climb - I got up one rung on the ladder,
and couldn't get any farther. After standing there for a few
minutes, I gave up. "I'm really sorry - I just can't do it", I told
Michael. He said all the right things - it's okay, if it doesn't
feel right, don't jump, all that stuff. I slunk away from the
tower, feeling like an absolute wimp.
I tossed and turned most of the night, second-guessing myself -
if I couldn't do it when conditions were perfect, what business
did I have to think that I would _ever_ be able to make another
BASE jump?
Saturday morning, I went out to the DZ. Michael and I had a simple
2-way CRW dive (from 3500 ft.) planned - and I had this overwhelming urge to
jump the pack job I had done for the tower. It was a basic BASE pack job on my
Raven IV - slider off, line mod (steering lines not threaded through anything
but the fingertraps - used in BASE because you can then unstow the brakes, and
let go of them to clear a line over). I got a very deep cut from the pilot -
about the same airspeed as I would have had after the 3-second delay I had
planned off the tower.
I opened - fast but not hard - into very serious line twists - bad
enough to push my chin to my chest, and push my helmet over
my eyes. As I kicked out of the line twists, I could feel the
canopy still turning - and I assumed a brake had come unstowed.
Sure enough, when I got out of the twists, I looked up - I had no
right toggle, the right endcell was just flapping in the wind, and
I was turning - not real fast, but more then I could correct out
with the other toggle. My first impression was that I had broken suspension
lines - in reality, the fingertrap on the right steering line
had broken during deployment - and I had a bad line entanglement. Without a
slider, I didn't recognize that - I just knew there was something wrong with
that side of the canopy. I looked around for
Michael - he was below and to one side of me. I yelled for
him to get away from me - I no longer had any desire to do CRW. :)
He went away - and I then released my other steering line, for
some reason hoping that would help matters - and all it did
was make the turn even worse. I looked at my handles, looked
at the canopy one more time, then look-reach, look-reach, pull,
pull - and my beautiful yellow Raven III was open by 2500 ft.
All ended well - I had a nice soft landing in the student landing
area.
But if I had pushed on, and climbed the tower - the fingertrap
would have more then likely have broken, it was dark enough
that I'd have assumed that spinning = lineover, thrown the
other steering line - and ridden a spinning mal into the ground.
And suddenly I understood why I hadn't been able to climb - and
why I had to jump that pack job the next day. I'll never again
assume that "It's just nerves - I'll jump anyway" - because I
might not be as lucky next time...
Tina Marie
B-17988
--
"There's no one else here - let's kill each other!"
- overheard in the office.
Yuri Kuznetsow
>It was a beautiful Friday evening. Winds were perfect for the tower -
>light on the ground, right between the wires. There was plenty of
>moon, the landing area was huge and soft - there was no reason
>not to jump. Except that it just didn't feel right - at all. I was so
>terrified that I couldn't climb - I got up one rung on the ladder,
>and couldn't get any farther. After standing there for a few
>minutes, I gave up. "I'm really sorry - I just can't do it", I told
>Michael. He said all the right things - it's okay, if it doesn't
>feel right, don't jump, all that stuff. I slunk away from the
>tower, feeling like an absolute wimp.
Tina, i'm glad you made the right decision based on your feelings.
I used to have the hard time with it - logic tends to override the
feelings, especially masked with fear. I climbed down twice because
of the wind before i made my first jump. I did climb down three more
times for no obvious reason after i had a few tower jumps. I looked at
it this way - i jump for fun. No fun - no jump either.
Later on, i did a bunch of jumps without any hesitation. I knew the
objects, and if i drove there it meant i've jumped. Than i had the same
shitty feeling one night. I've climbed anyway, sat there for a while
thinking about it. I couldn't find any excuse not to jump and was too
lazy to climb down. Eventually, i jumped and had the worst exit ever -
for no reason at all i pretty much flipped on my back, felt the pilot
chute brushing on my foot and got the back pain for the whole next week.
This jump did it - now when at least one part of the brain doesn't want
to go, it's no-go.
I didn't catch any real (material) problems reported in this weird
way by feelings. Still, a brain-lock caused by the fighting brain pieces
is no better. I guess as long as you do what you want, climbing down
once in a while is fun. Also, you get twice as much of exercise ;-)
Funny, i only had those feelings at night. Black Death is really
Black ;-)
bsbd!
Yuri.
P.S. Does jump #50 qualify for NCB half-a-case ? ;-)