kkeenan 14 #1 July 2, 2007 I don't expect that this story will bring a lot of additional followers to the world of CRW, or Canopy Formation jumping. However, it illustrates some of the physical aspects of CRW and the extra equipment issues involved. CRW emergencies tend to be more involved than those in other discilines. I've tried to not use too much CRW jargon, but it's sort of a complicated jump story. I think there are some lessons to be learned from the events, which, thankfully, I am still on this side of the white light and able to share. A sideline may be why shouldn't I take up bowling, golf, or some other less deadly pastime than CRW. We were doing Rotations from 13.5k at ZHills, and were at about 8-9k when all this BS started. While transitioning from #2 up to the top on a 4-way Rotation practice jump, I had the misfortune of snagging my left toggle on the nose of the canopy below me, piloted by Allen Gutshall. While some say that the Lightning is not the quickest performing canopy around, I'm here to tell you that when you put in about 4 ft. of control input on a toggle, a 113 Lightning will spin up like an electric fan in the blink of an eye. The first lesson (other than keeping track of your toggles) is to watch out for your hands. My immediate reaction to the left turn was to try to get hold of my right toggle. As I reached up, and before I could even touch the toggle, my right arm was captured just above the wrist by the spinning lines and risers. This seemed to happen in an instant, and the next thing I knew, I had solid line twists from the bottom of my canopy down to my hand, which was in the lines. The canopy was spinning so powerfully that once all of the lines were twisted, it just got tighter and tighter. I was hanging from my right arm, and the crushing pressure on my wrist was incredible. In a CRW wrap, your hands are vital to survival. I was instantly down to one hand and the other one was in severe trouble. The canopy was thrashing me around like I was a cheap dog toy in the mouth of a Pit Bull. Thank God for Altitude. This seemed to go on for some time. I was praying for Allen to hurry up and cut away, as I was sure that this would help with the forces that I was expecting to amputate my arm any moment. I couldn't get Allen's canopy off my left foot, and actually he had already cut away, but I never felt him leave. I got my shoe kicked off and Allen's canopy left me alone. It seemed that my beloved 113, "Zippy", had stopped spinning at this point. Maybe it was so twisted up that it wasn't really flying that much or it may have been that my spin rate had caught up with it and we were both spinning at the same speed. In any case, I was still hanging by one arm, attached by what looked like all the lines in a huge bundle. I very much hated the idea of sending a reserve up into that. I wanted to get free of all of it before cutting away, but I knew that there was no way my hand was getting out. I grabbed the cutaway handle with my left hand, felt the Velcro peel away and pulled. It went nowhere. Damn. Nothing was going well. It seems that a left handed cutaway pull is at a very awkward angle to generate much force. And hanging from one arm, I couldn't seem to put as much power into it as I would like. After a couple of yanks, however, my adrenaline was really spiking (whatever was left of it, anyway). I think it was the 4th pull that finally released the risers. This changed the loading, and a lot of the lines left my hand. The canopy was just a wad now and the drag dropped a lot. I could feel myself accelerating, still in a feet-to-earth attitude, hanging from the canopy. I looked at the ground and guessed that I was at about 5-6k. I knew that I would have to dump the reserve into the trailing main eventually, if I couldn’t get rid of it. I also knew that my CYPRES would do that at 750 ft. whether I liked it or not. Anyway, the altitude looked like it would give me enough time to use a hook knife on the remaining lines, and that seemed much more reasonable then trying to cut the huge bundle that was on there before. I was thinking about this and starting to reach for the nearest hook knife (luckily there were 3 that I could get to with my left hand). Just then the lines on my wrist shifted, and felt looser. I reached up with my left hand, and they pulled right off. Earlier, when Allen cut away, it was without much knowledge of what was going on with my parachute, other than it seemed to be going totally apeshit and flailing me all over the sky, while attached to his parachute. Once he had had enough of this, he cut away and did about a 5-8 sec. delay to get well below all this action. When I got the lines off my hand, I knew I had it made. Being free of that thing meant that I wouldn’t be making the crapshoot of deploying into a tangled main, and all that was left was a quick reserve ride. I flipped over to get stable face-to-earth, and the first thing I saw was Allen’s reserve below me and about 50 yards to my left. I had forgotten all about him, and this was a real surprise. I pulled my reserve ripcord as I went past Allen at about 100 mph. I’d like to say that I waved or yelled "Woo Hoo", but I think I my eyes were bugging out of my goggles with that one last drop of adrenaline in my system. Allen did say that he got a great view of my reserve deployment. I was open about 3k, and as I looked around at what seemed to be a lot of mains and freebags in the air, all I wanted to do was hang there and rest. I thought about chasing a freebag, as I am fond of doing, but decided I’d had enough excitement for one jump. My right arm felt useless, and I made left turns while I thought about how to land. In the couple of minutes it took to get to the ground, I decided that the arm would work one more time to flare and I landed just fine. It’s Monday morning, now, and everything is pretty good with the arm. It’s swollen and ugly, but no real damage. It just goes to show you. It's always something. Kevin K._____________________________________ Dude, you are so awesome... Can I be on your ash jump ? Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ianmdrennan 2 #2 July 2, 2007 Kevin, Thank you for posting that. Scarey stuff. I'm glad you're ok (relatively speaking ) Hope your arm gets better fast. Blues, Ian Performance Designs Factory Team Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BillyVance 35 #3 July 2, 2007 Quote Hope your arm gets better fast. It will, as soon as he finds a cow's pussy to sink it in up to the shoulder. Seriously though, glad you made it out alive! By the way, you DID have pictures taken of your arm, didn't you???? "Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
towerrat 0 #4 July 2, 2007 HHHMMMMMMM...........funny that, I was at Z-hills all weekend and didn't here a thing about this incident. I did however here this crazy story about some drunken old guy getting beat up by the manifest girls. Evidently when they pulled his hand from the paper shredder it was in pretty bad shape.......... Play stupid games, win stupid prizes! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
monkycndo 0 #5 July 2, 2007 Quote Quote Hope your arm gets better fast. It will, as soon as he finds a cow's pussy to sink it in up to the shoulder. It really helps to wiggle the hand around as well. It won't make it heal any faster, but the cow will love it.50 donations so far. Give it a try. You know you want to spank it Jump an Infinity Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
mirage62 0 #6 July 2, 2007 Oh what a pile of crap. Pretty soon you'll be telling me that you have TWO F.U.P's But just in case it's true....want to come to do r.w.?Glad your okay man, it would ruin my day to hear you had lost your main fr Kevin Keenan is my hero, a double FUP, he does so much with so little Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
el_chester 4 #7 July 2, 2007 Hey Kevin, thanks for sharing. Glad you could get rid of your mani! Oh, and I'm still doing my first CRW jump with oyu, someday. -- Be careful giving advice. Wise men don't need it, and fools won't heed it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
jojo69 0 #8 July 3, 2007 Thank you for sharing your story. I am glad you had a happy ending. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ficus 0 #9 July 3, 2007 QuoteI am glad you had a happy ending. Well, he shouldn't have to do it himself with his right arm in that condition. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
happythoughts 0 #10 July 3, 2007 Quote I thought about chasing a freebag, as I am fond of doing, but decided I’d had enough excitement for one jump. Chase it to where? One main landed on the dz and the other was 50 ft from it. Nice job on the spot. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
