SAD news

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Updated Tuesday, July 10, 2001

Student dies in skydiving accident
By RACHEL DENNY — For The Daily Times
DAYTON TOWNSHIP — A 22-year-old Pennsylvania woman was killed skydiving Monday.
Allison Hoffman of Allentown, a college student, was found dead in remote timber off East 1951 Road in Dayton Township.
She is the eighth person to die in an accident since Skydive Chicago moved to Ottawa in 1993.
For unknown reasons, Hoffman’s parachute did not inflate, La Salle County Coroner Jody Bernard said Wednesday.
An autopsy was scheduled for this morning, she added.
The coroner’s office, La Salle County Sheriff’s Department and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the death, Bernard said.
Skydive Chicago was in the news last year when a Missoula, Mont., man died after a mid-air collision with another skydiver.
The business was attempting to break the world record for the number of skydivers in a free-fall formation.
Three skydivers died within three weeks of each other in 1998.
Skydive Chicago Program Director Roger Nelson could not be reached for comment.
Hoffman was a culinary student at Johnson and Wales University in Miami, Fla. She was to have graduated in December, said Alicia Medina, academics administrator.
When a student dies, the university often will start a collection to help the parents with funeral costs, she said.
“Usually we will wait until the parents call us,” Medina said. “We don’t want to intrude. We usually do take a collection to help out the parents.”
Here is another article:
Parachutist falls to death in Ottawa
OTTAWA -- A 22-year-old woman parachutist was found dead Monday evening in a remote timber area about three miles northeast of Ottawa, according to the LaSalle County sheriff's and coroner's offices.
Allison Hoffman of Ottawa, who was originally from Pennsylvania, was skydiving when her parachute failed to open.
Hoffman was pronounced dead at 7:18 p.m. Monday in a remote area off East 1951st Road in Dayton Township.
Hoffman, who is employed by Skydive Chicago of Ottawa, was skydiving on her day off, police said. Sheriff's police were notified of the accident shortly before 6:40 p.m. Monday.
My condolences go out to her family and friends.

[Pammi 0]

I wonder what 'really' happened. Doesn't say much more then the normal news garbage of course.
My condolences also to the family and friends.
Our webpage

[Zennie 0]

My condolences to Allison's family & friends.
I don't know why we even bother with incident reports. After all, every skydiving fatality is due to the parachute failing to open.
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Blue Skies!
Zennie

[Geoff 0]

Firstly - My condolences to the family and friends. I've lost one friend skydiving, so I do know how it feels.
Secondly -

Quote

I don't know why we even bother with incident reports. After all, every skydiving fatality is due to the parachute failing to open.

I really have to disagree. (1) There's a lot to be learned from incident reports. (2) The majority of fatalities are not due to the parachute failing to open.- collisions, entanglements, low turns, landing problems, etc
Geoff

[mouth 0]

Wonder if she pulled both canopies and got nothing or if she lots awareness.....
My condolences to family and friends.

[Zennie 0]

Sarcasm alert Geoff.
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Blue Skies!
Zennie

[PalmettoTiger 1]

My heart goes out to her family and friends. Sudden deaths are the toughest to deal with. When I lost someone close to me, the thing I missed most was the chance to say goodbye.

Quote

I don't know why we even bother with incident reports. After all, every skydiving fatality is due to the parachute failing to open.

Agreed. This is probably a little insensitive given the context, but I wish that reports would say "the jumper was not able to deal with the malfunction in time." That's much more accurate, and doesn't imply a transfer of responsibility from the skydiver to the packer/rigger. It also doesn't incriminate people who get royally screwed, like the Kansas State student whose wingsuit covered his cutaway handle.
Blues, squares,
PTiger
"Beer: the OTHER other white meat."

[lewmonst 0]

my condolences to Allison's family and friends as well...
I just returned from Skydive Chicago Sunday night. It's always shocking and sad to hear of such.
But I do think incident reports are useful. Not the way the local paper tells it, they tend to only say so many people died, when they really have no understanding of the sport, why accidents happen, and the ratio of incidents to uneventful skydives. I can't quote you how many skydives are made on average at Skydive Chicago each day, but from what I saw as an outside experienced jumper, the operations are thorough and seem very safety oriented. But again, I will look for the real S&TA incident report to understand what malfunctioned specifically. These reports are crucial to learning in my opinion, the "what not to do". Whether it's a rigging issue, or emergency procedures, or just a reminder on how to be a safe skydiver, we all learn from thorough incident reports. Remember the recent gromet incidents? If those would not have been reported, many more deaths could have resulted from skydivers who didn't know that piece of their gear could become lethal... and we all checked our gromets, replaced lose ones, and kept skydiving. If only the general media could portray it so that the public could understand, perhaps, relate it to incidents with cars, such as the firestone faulty tires, which killed many, but becuase the incidents were reported, many others replaced potentially dangerous tires. But do you stop driving and walk everywhere, no, the world will continue to drive...
And you definately cannot just say a fatality is due to the parachute not opening. There is more to it than that. There are dozens of reason a parachute malfunctions, very few actually occur in a parachute completely not opening. and in fact, if you are familiar with incidents in the last few years, there are more fatalities of experienced jumpers under a full canopy (completely open parachute) than there are due to any sort of malfunctions. Be smart, no hook turns please, as so many outside really don't understand how skydivers lose their lives, all they know are the statistics. don't be a statistic...
peace
lew

[Emma 0]

How sad, love and thoughts go to families and friends...
Emma

[Zennie 0]

Gang, gang, I was being sarcastic. I wish I could impart tone of voice in my posts but I can't. I'm just sick of the same, predictable whuffo mindlessness that passes as reporting.
Anybody who knows me knows how I feel about the online incident reports. They are a gold mine of information. I've read every US and international report as well as all of the Cypres saves. I've said time and again that the information in these reports could very well save your life one day.
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Blue Skies!
Zennie

[Geoff 0]

OK, well you sure had me.......

[lewmonst 0]

I'm actually glad to hear you were being sarcastic and not ignorant. But i really didn't expect to see sarcasm on this thread. And you can't impart your tone of voice, and i don't know you, or hardly anyone on this forum. all i know is what you post. hance the misunderstanding. i'm sure we could start a thread highlighting the ingnorance of media and whuffo's accounts on skydiving tragedies...
knowledge is golden.
btw, where can you read about cypress saves?
get a cypres, turn it on
lew

[skymedic 0]

Geoff, heavy sarcasm there!!! on zennies part.
Marc

[Zennie 0]

Quote

I'm actually glad to hear you were being sarcastic and not ignorant. But i really didn't expect to see sarcasm on this thread.

Oh I'm ignorant. Just not in this case.
I asked myself whether I should post that side comment, but I was so pissed to see yet another "parachute failed to open" article (actually *two* for the same incident) that I went ahead. Sorry about the misunderstanding.
My sarcasm is very subtle, even when you hear me talking. So if it sounds like what I'm saying is totally absurd, I'm probably being sarcastic (to point out the absurdity).

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btw, where can you read about cypress saves?

Here ya go!
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Blue Skies!
Zennie

[skysquiffy 0]

I would imagine that you're post was misunderstood because you chose to write "incident reports" when you were actually refering to a newspaper article. Every jumper I know considers an incident report to be something created within our community, regardless of the actually source. I think it was fairly obvious that this article was written by someone other than a skydiver, as most of them are. Your comment was redundant at best, and certainly unnecessary.
Allison, I'm sorry I only got to have a couple of smokes with you from time to time and I didn't get to know you very well.
Fly free little one.
Princess Squiffy

[Donna 0]

Zennie - I thought it was pretty obvious that you were being sarcastic and understood your frustration at seeing yet again, "parachute failed to open". We all want to know what happen when there is a tragedy so we can try to make ourselves and others safer.
My heart goes out to Allison and her friends and family. Even those of us who didn't know her will miss our sister.
Blues skies forever.
Skies,
D

[Zennie 0]

Quote

I would imagine that you're post was misunderstood because you chose to write "incident reports" when you were actually refering to a newspaper article

No I meant incident reports.

I mean. What's the point? According to our omnipotent newsmedia with their exhaustively-researched reports, all parachuting fatalities are a simple matter of "his parachute failed to open." Nothing to learn. Nothing to analyze. It's quite easy. So why have incident reports that are redundant?
2001 Skydiving Incidents (News Media Style)
--------------------------------------------
Incident #1: His parachute failed to open.
Incident #2: His parachute failed to open.
Incident #3: His parachute failed to open.
....

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Blue Skies!
Zennie

[wildblue 7]

Zennie - when you say "incident reports" everyone thinks of actualy real reports, such as those at http://www.skydivenet.com/fatalities/
no one thinks of news articles as incident reports. I think that's where the confusion is here.
Anyway... thoughts and prayers to Ally's family and friends.
If anyone has accurate info, please share it. It's hard to get anything from the crap that gets posted by Tantrum and Jimmy on wreck-dot.

[skysquiffy 0]

Well, I'm still not sure why you used that terminology, because again, an "incident report" is something created by our community for our community. The fact is, the general media is not aimed at an individual group, it is aimed at the general populous. As such, it will not provide the sport-specific details that we need to understand the hows, whys and whats of a fatality/accident. It just strikes me as odd that you would be surprised or angered when the general media provides only generalities or incorrect interpretations of our sport. They are uninformed about our sport and their reporting is aimed at an uninformed public.
Princess Squiffy.

[chicagoskydiver 0]

This makes the eighth fatality at Skydive Chicago since they moved to Ottawa in 1993. Some may say it's just bad luck but that's eight in eight years. I have to wonder about that.
Hackey

[lewmonst 0]

8 in 8 years...yeah, but like i said before, i don't think most dz's make as many jumps in a year as Skydive Chicago does on a weekend...
i think they did 140ish tandems while i was there on saturday
lew

[Zennie 0]

Quote

It just strikes me as odd that you would be surprised or angered when the general media provides only generalities or incorrect interpretations of our sport. They are uninformed about our sport and their reporting is aimed at an uninformed public.

I'm not surprised, but I am angered.
It's not a matter of them reporting generalities, it's a matter of them reporting things that are flat-out wrong. And "well, we're just uninformed so give us a break" is not an excuse.
The newsmedia wields incredible power to shape public opinion and perception. If they see fit to print a report that is going to be read by the general public then they owe it to that public to get the facts right. If they don't know the facts, then the responsible thing to do is not to print anything. It's OK to say "the cause of the accident is being investigated." But to print "her parachute failed to open" when they have absolutely no idea what happened is downright irresponsible.
No wonder we have whuffos with reporting like that. Why do you think you're always asked "What if your parachute doesn't open?"? Perhaps because of the drivel they read in the newpapers or see on the nightly news broadcasts?
And if they're that sloppy at reporting something which we're able to see as blatantly fallacious, how accurate can any of the other reporting be? Why should I believe anything that's reported?
I don't want to be spoon fed generalities and editorial comments. I want, and expect, facts.
OK. Enough of my "accuracy in reporting" rant for this thread.
Blue skies forever Alison.
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Blue Skies!
Zennie

[GrumpySmurf 0]

My feelings exactly - the higher the number of jumps at a given location, the greater the chance that an 'incident' as dreadful as this is going to occur at that location. As for SDC as a DZ, I have yet to see a training program in the US or Canada (AFF/PFF, IAD or S/L) that even comes within a fraction of the detail given in their AFP program - not to mention the calibre of top-notch skydivers they draw worldwide.
Hopefully an investigation can shed some light on the cause and help prevent it needlessly happening to someone else. The worst any one of us could do is to think, 'That couldn't happen to me.'.

[pyke 0]

Bummer dude. I hate reading about fatalities. Not that it isn't an intergral and inherent part of the sport, but it just sucks all the same.
and yeah, 8 deaths in 8 years...considering how many ppl SC puts up in a year...I think you'll find that it is still statistically a safe dz. All of these deaths, though, say nothing for the equipment, training, etc. I hear that SC is a great place to jump, both for the divers AND their non-jumping family while he is away jumping. Sounds like a veritable THEME park!!
My condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.
Kahurangi e Mahearangi,
Pyke
NZPF A - 2584

[cameramonkey 0]

Although there are seemingly alot of fatalaties in those 8 years, but I'm curious how Roger's fatalaty and injury reports stack up. and NOT ruling out self transport type injuries. ANY injury requiring attention at a medical facility since some DZO's prefer self transport so they dont have to claim an injury.
I am curious how those numbers compare with the national averages based on a jump to injury/fatality ratio.