Time To Reflect

[Luke 0]

I have thought very carefully before making this post. My only consideration is the incredible pain Paul's family must be going through. I sincerely apologise to them, but we must learn. We won't stop jumping, but we can learn.

I would ask you to avoid arguing about minor details, if you respond to this post, but rather to take in the bigger picture. It would also be constructive to not just focus on the personalities involved, although they can’t be omitted because they were an important contributary factor. We have a genuine opportunity to move forward from this tragedy.

UK BASE has recently lost a young and promising jumper, due to a pointless error. It's only a few years ago that another family lost their young son from an almost identical rigging mistake. Out of respect for the boy's father, NdG posted the father's write up on that incident on the fatalities page (#63) without further comment. Brian's father was adamant that although a rubber band had been used to pack his pilot chute, it had definitely been removed before jumping. This is not a view shared by those present and by others that have seen the video.

Disregarding whether Brian did or didn’t forget to remove the rubber band from his PC, that fatality generated a great deal of discussion on the matter. Why wasn't this simple lesson learnt?

I understand that although seriously frowned upon by most, there are still people packing using this method. We are (and will remain) unregulated. We make our own decisions and must live or die by them. We indulge in a very risky hobby and must strive to continuously improve ourselves in several ways, in order to maximise our chances. Foremost amongst those skills is that of risk/reward analysis. At the simplest level this means "Is the perceived benefit to you of carrying out an action worth the risk to you?" Even before Paul's death, nobody (in my opinion) could put forward a convincing argument for using a pull up cord or rubber band to pack a PC. They might argue that a tools count eradicates that risk, but this is a fatuous argument: a simple thing like someone leaving a similar pull up or rubber band near you will defeat your tools count.

It must be plain to see that this pull up cord/ rubber band technique is all bad news. So why was an intelligent young man using it?

You must question his most basic judgement. He was jumping with another young man, who has done a lot of jumps and Paul probably looked up to him, but ultimately it was Paul's decision to jump and to adopt that packing technique.

Now obviously I am criticising Paul's decisions and he can't defend himself. If Paul's family is still reading this board, it will be most unwelcome, particularly at this time. To them alone I apologise once again, but I am adamant that the following needs to be said. There are several young, inexperienced jumpers at the moment that may reflect on their own actions, if they consider what I'm putting up here. They have wives, parents, siblings, sons and daughters: people that don't deserve to be robbed by the grim reaper.

We all make mistakes, we all display poor judgement occasionally; we're human. We need to recognise these errors and work to avoid making them again, rather than viewing it as positive reinforcement that "getting away with it" is the way forward.

It is worth repeating that you can most certainly die BASE jumping, even if you do everything right all the time. However every time you cut corners, you're loading the dice against yourself overwhelmingly.

When Paul started BASE, I remember hearing how he had argued with a respected, experienced jumper about the merit of pursuing formal instruction, saying that he didn't have the money. They had been discussing the course in Norway, which Paul had contemplated attending. Whilst quite site specific, this course is a very well regarded and certainly good value, at only a few hundred pounds.

Not long after, Paul accompanied somebody with approximately 20 BASE jumps (called ‘Y’, for the time being) to the Swiss Valley. The Swiss valley is not suitable for somebody to do their first few BASE jumps. Moreover, there are suitable objects only a few hours drive away. Y later refused to accept any responsibility for Paul, whatsoever, but that's another issue. What was going through Paul's head to go there to start BASE, without formal instruction, without an experienced jumper to at least look out for him? He had been specifically advised against it, but went anyway.

After Paul had completed about 5 jumps in Switzerland they made their way to Italy, to the terminal wall. It is well documented and known that the ITW is an advanced site. You walk past a monument to get to the exit point that lists the fatalities there, disproportionately lengthy for the BASE traffic through there. Most of the fatalities have been inexperienced jumpers and consequently the plaque on the monument requests that only jumpers with more than 50 BASE jumps, or more than 15 with an experienced BASE teacher go there. Paul could not even come close to satisfying these criteria.

After a further 2 BASE jumps there at the ITW, ‘Y’ supplied and encouraged Paul to jump a wing suit off there. He had a grand total of about 7 sub terminal exits to draw upon his experience if and when the exit went wrong. I happened to witness this and expressed my concerns to ‘Y’, as he was the (relatively) experienced jumper on their load and had also supplied the wing suit. He began to argue and once again attempted to absolve himself of any and all responsibility for the situation. Worse than that: ‘Y’ attempted to persuade us that the idea had merit. The argument became heated between my two friends and Y and Paul was persuaded to remove the wing suit, which my friend promptly stuffed down his top and left the cliff with. It should be noted that one of my friends that had been arguing vehemently against Paul and ‘Y’ is one of the world's very best wing suit BASE jumpers.

The wing suit was returned to ‘Y’ on the ground. My friends and I were in full agreement that they would almost certainly carry out that wing suit jump, once no one was there to nanny them. We were also in agreement that a fatality was an entirely conceivable outcome. We felt that we had absolutely no business pursuing the matter further and we should now leave them to choose their own path, as the responsible adults they were.

As I fully suspected, Paul did make that wing suit jump. His friend has posted a picture of it on DZ.com, in tribute to him.

Aside from the Blackpool bust with Dangerous Dave, I don't know anything more about Paul's progress, thereafter. I met him at the skydiving AGM and was once again struck by what a thoughtful and nice person he was.

It seems contradictory then, that to my mind he consistently made notably bad choices about his personal safety and progression, and who he chose to be influenced by.

Many people admire our Australian brethren for their ballsy, boundary stretching jumps. I admire them more for two things: primarily their risk/ reward analysis, but from that comes their attitude towards personal progression in the sport. They are strong believers in learning every new thing, bit by bit. Become consistent and solid, before moving on.

I was extremely fortunate to meet three experienced Australian jumpers at a stage in my own progression where I was most certainly getting ahead of myself. I had accumulated 7 jumps and chose to jump a relatively low, shear cliff. I chose to do my first running exit, stowed, on a 2s delay slider down jump. I got briefed on the way to the exit point how to do a running exit. I asked my teacher if he thought I was capable of doing the jump and while I could clearly see that he was nervous about it, he didn't say no, so I heard what I wanted to hear; and I wanted to make that jump.

The winds were not right, but after a while they appeared to settle. I watched a more experienced friend go off before me and have a 180 with a line twist. I watched him disappear under a big ledge and kick off the wall and still I was good to go. My jump, seconds later, went perfectly.

Later that evening I was partying with the Australians and they brought up the topic of my progression. They were reasonably impressed with what they'd seen, but, to put it frankly, my progression was too fast. One said that he'd seen the (then) living legends(*) progressions and I apparently made them seem over cautious. This home truth hit me lit a hammer. I did not need telling twice, or any further persuasion. I backed right off, making each jump as close to the last one as possible in terms of the skills set needed, doing my utmost best to follow the recommended Aussie progression. I still try to do that today and will always aspire to it. I'm not always successful, but I try to be honest with myself when I have shown poor judgement and/or have made a mistake. My aim is to avoid making that mistake again and preferably to avoid making new mistakes.

(*) RIP DW & RS (#84)

In summary, the old ways are not always the best, but in BASE they almost certainly are. Do not rely on all the magnificent equipment we have these days to make up for your own shortcomings. If someone tells you to ease off, they are looking after their objects, but they're also looking out for you. You are not better than the old guys and cutting corners simply shortens your life expectancy.

Please listen to them.

RIP Paul
BASE Fatality #94

NdG's Fatality List:http://hometown.aol.com/base194/myhomepage/base_fatality_list

[TVPB 0]

Luke

IMHO - your thoughts, sentiments, and your post, are very appropriate. It seemed like a good balance between expressing your own mortality and human nature (making silly decisions), and a desire for people to make an effort to progress in a safer manner.

In the end, 99.9% of participants in BASE jumping are adults who ARE capable of making decisions. They have sufficient information, resources, and people, available to them to make appropriate decisions nowadays. Anyone who wants to short cut a well defined process without including a robust risk management strategy, or chooses not to pursue reliable information, is TOTALLY responsible for their outcome.

I am VERY sympathetic to the families that lose one of their loved ones. I have had to inform a mother of the death of her child and I know what it is like.

Unfortunately, the story you are describing in your post is becoming more and more common. Intentional ignorance leading to serious incidents is downright selfish behaviour. It rons families and friends, and it robs the sport too.

You referred to the Australian BASE jumping scene. Your concerns are very relevant downunder as well. This is made more obvious by our "contribution" to the list, and the number of and reason for incidents that have occured downunder.

In the end, if you can make one person rethink as a result of your concerns, you have achieved the miracle of life and I think it is the right thing to do. If others don't give a shit and they pursue the shortcuts, then don't worry, that was their choice. To the ones in between (i.e. their intent was good and their actions were not deliberate), I can only say bad luck. It could happen to any of us.

p.s. I just wanted to add, it is not that relevant whether a person is nice or not. The important consideration is whether or not their decision making process is logical, reasonable, fair, considerate, and unselfish.

I would rather jump with an areshole who is well trained and progressing relative to his/her ability than a person who is nice but is a high incident risk. It does not matter how nice a dead person is.

Your friends and loved ones need you!!!

Don't deprive them just for a quick fix.

Don't deprive yourself of all the amazing jumps and locations you can do / visit as your jump numbers increase.

Do the right thing. Both for yourself, and for others.

Stay Safe - Have Fun - Good Luck

The above could be crap, thought provoking, useful, or . . But not personal. You decide.