Some insight into our sport

Our wonderful dropzone, Skydive Twin Cities, recently experienced a fatal tragedy. Skydiving deaths tend to lead to misconceptions about our sport, so I want to write a little bit about skydiving to let everyone know that what is reported on the news about it is very rarely totally truthful. We aren't just a bunch of careless crazy people with death wishes.

I had just gotten through a really low time in my life when I started skydiving. I made my first jump to signify a new chapter for myself. I wanted to do something daring and something I had never done before. I thought I would skydive once and be satisfied, but I knew the instant I jumped out of the plane that first time that I wanted to do it again. And again and again and again! It was thrilling, freeing, amazing, liberating, and a little bit scary. I loved it. It became a huge passion of mine and a really big part of my life. Skydiving has given me confidence, courage, happiness, freedom, many lifelong friendships, and even my awesome husband, and therefore my awesome child as well. This sport has taught me a TON about myself and it has brought many good things my way.

I would not consider skydiving a safe sport. There are many things that can go wrong once you jump out of an airplane. BUT. It is not as unsafe as most non-skydivers believe. The parachutes and back-up systems that we all have on our rigs here in the year 2008 are very advanced. Even if you fail to pull either your main or your reserve parachutes, there is a device that will inflate your reserve parachute for you. Parachutes are completely maneuverable and with a little experience, you can land in a pre-determined spot very accurately. In 2006, only 6 of the 60 worldwide fatalities have a label of "Equipment Malfunction." A lot of the fatalities and injuries in this sport happen because of some level of human error.

I thought of a good analogy this morning on my way to work. It's kind of like driving a car. If you are as safe a driver as possible, you can decrease the risk of getting into an accident. If you wear your seatbelt, drive a safe car that is well maintained, avoid aggressive driving, obey the street signs and the rules of the road and the speed limits, respect other drivers, be aware of the cars around you, and avoid distractions while driving like texting or talking on the phone, you will certainly decrease your chance of getting into an accident. Unfortunately, doing all of these things doesn't rule out all accidents. Sometimes another car will run a stoplight or a deer will cross the road in front of you or you will find yourself in a blizzard or you will make a poor judgment when a family of ducks walks onto the freeway. Now you don't have complete control and bad things can happen. This is a lot like skydiving. You can eliminate a lot of the risk if you practice safe jumping, but you can never eliminate all of the risk.

The man who died on Friday was just an acquaintance to me, but a lot of our friends had known him for 10-15+ years. Friday was a very sad day for everyone, as STC has never before experienced a tragedy like this. His death did not result from equipment failure, like the news made it sound. He was a very experienced skydiver who died after making a miscalculation in his altitude while performing a high-performance turn in an attempt to land. His parachute was unable to recover from the turn before he reached the ground. (Or something along these lines, as no one really knows for sure yet.)

Even though being a mama has seriously decreased the number of jumps I make, I still plan to continue skydiving and hopefully in the future, as Elijah gets older, I'll really get back into it. Dan is now officially a tandem instructor (YAY, HUBBY!), so he doesn't plan on stopping any time soon. We understand the risks and we take all the precautions we can to be safe skydivers. We are not careless individuals who don't have regard for our child or family or friends. We are informed and we are as safe as we can possibly be and we LOVE THIS SPORT and we want to help protect its integrity.

Next time you hear about a skydiving accident on the news, don't be so quick to believe the "BOTH parachutes FAILED to open!" remarks that are often made in that overly dramatic news voice that makes me want to puke. Most of the time, there is much more to the story and human error might likely play a role in that.

Rest in peace, Todd. Your passion for skydiving was inspiring, and you will be missed by many at STC, and at dropzones all around the country.