tfelber

When we were walking up to the bridge to do the 5-way that went to shit, I told everyone on the load "Remember the most important thing on this jump is ME!" May sound arrogant or self-serving but it is the reality of any exit. Worry about yourself first and foremost. If id doesn't feel right don't do it. Even if everyone else on the load goes, think first about yourself. Any other decision is the WRONG decision. Once the shit happened, Jason was the most important thing on the jump and we all did our best to assist him. This includes all the people on the bridge, in the air, in the helicopter, ambulances, and hospitals. To me this is EXACTLY the way it should work. This is dangerous stuff. Keep your head and make the right decisions. It was a very messy weekend around the world for skydiving and BASE. I feel for all affected by the tragedies. I think Jason used up everyone's luck for the weekend and he needed every bit of it.

That's what I heard, but I wasn't going to be the first to say it...

Here's the info I have. I'm sure others can elaborate. - low turn dragging a foot which resulted in a broken Tib/Fib repaired by a 7mm 24 inch rod and 4 screws. - a believed broken Tib/Fib and Radius/Ulna resulting from a high, downwind flare and stall. - a broken wrist??? - a believed broken coccyx maybe worse resulting from a dropped toggle and high rear riser flare. - a broken hip and other bumps and bruises from a downwind landing in the boulder field. - one other I can't remember right now. Feel free to correct any of these...

The timing did not really come up as a concern because it had been done before and worked. I heard a comment regarding Nick leaving a little early on that jump and so we just decided it was critical to leave together. Nick would roll over before bridle stretch and the extraction of canopies would happen below him. The horizontal separation between Nick, Michael, and Jason was minimized, about a shoulder width from my angle probably less from reviewing stills, to allow slack in the bridle which bystanders were helping to manage. So it would have been a mistake on Nick’s part to release the PC’s. It was not until he had been pulled laterally away from Jason this technique would have helped. When Nick exited he dove down over his canopy to decrease the chance of entanglement and this combined with Jason and Michael's heads up exit caused the unplanned separation. Maybe we should have called it off when Nick was wrestling his canopy, but I was on the outside in a relatively safe position and felt that decision was his, Jason's, and Michael's to make. When the count started I got ready to jump and deal with my issues. Regarding snag issues I have a very different viewpoint than even Nick. Jason and Michael have been jumping this armor for some time. Michael was wearing it at the Turkey Boogie this year. Apparently, they did not consider the snag potential a real risk. In this accident I do not believe the problem had anything to do with a hangup on the armor. I will do a more thorough review and correct myself if I’m wrong. From my review the canopy comes out of the container on Jason’s right side while on his back. Simultaneously, Nick releases the PC which comes up Jason’s left side. The PC comes into contact with the Main canopy and wraps around it or the lines. Jason is now tied up in a sort of reverse horseshoe with the lines across his back and nothing else to do that would help in the time remaining. Nick’s opinion is based on needing to cut the multi off Jason’s right arm (I believe) to free him from the canopy. This however could have resulted from Jason trying to free himself, impact, or movement trying to get him out of the water enough to breathe. I do not remember how tight the lines from the multi were, but it one of the elbow pads was pulled partially loose. Again, this could have happened on impact. I’m not trying to dodge a bullet here or protect my friend’s from the blame game. I’m just stating what we have determined through the course of our examination. We were all pretty shook up at the time and on perceptions may have been distorted. It is only through video and stills we have gotten as far as we have.

Nick's story about what happened is pretty much right on! Releasing the PC's prematurely gives you the normal snivel problem you would have had if you were PCA'ing them from the other side of the rail on the bridge. If you recognized you were below them, remember Nick is upside down in the middle of a rollover in less than optimal winds concentrating on not releasing the PC' early, there would be the fear of entangling them in their own bridles and killing them both. As it was, and Nick can comment on this, Nick rolled over, felt the PC's pop from his hand, and started looking for other canopies to avoid a collision. It was after that that the problem became apparent. I had a 90 right and was dealing with the not hitting the rocks when I heard Nick yell. When I turned Jason was in the water. I know the other 4 of us feared the worst and just headed to the ground as quickly and safely as possible. The Velcro rig did cause part of the problem. If you notice in the photos Michael's canopy is out of the container and being pulled off his back towards the inside. Jason's rig stayed closed until he was inverted and the force of Nick's pull was away from his back instead of to the side. At that point the canopy started coming out under Jason's right arm and Nick is still holding the PC. When Nick released the PC it came up the left side of Jason's body entangling with the still unopened main and there it stayed until impact. In hindsight, if Nick would have held the PC longer and given the canopy a chance to catch more air the much larger drag of the main would probably have pulled the PC to the right side of Jason's body instead. In this particular instance, if Nick would have released the PC while Jason was on his side the force of the PC would have righted Jason's roll and extracted the main normally, but I hope you can see that the probability of that result is not necessarily the highest. Jason got very lucky and is doing incredibly well. The only real issue I see that we overlooked in our planning was the consideration of possible vertical separation between the exits of Nick and the twins. After discussing the details of this jump it is clear we should have still had Jason and Michael exit a little early. Too early however would have pulled Nick into his canopy and we would have had a different situation to deal with. We discussed this jump in detail. We went over the exit timing multiple times on the ground. They had tried the 3-way portion of this jump previously and were successful. All we were adding were the two outside tardovers. Due to the off heading characteristics of a tardover we had about 6 canopy width of separation between Vince and I along with the expected vertical separation. Like Nick said, this wasn't something we decided to do as we were walking onto the bridge and saw Jason and Michael with packed rigs. There was a lot of thought and planning that went into it and we still overlooked an important detail. We did not realize how critical the timing could or would become. "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry" ***** While writing this I received a call from Michael and he said Jason is doing very well. He is off the ventilator and breathing on his own. He still has a long way to go, but it looks like he will have a complete recovery. Keep up the good vibes. *****

I see that you were once a BD promoter, maybe still are to some extent. Is there a line of people waiting for Jason to slip-up so they can run in and make the big bucks putting on the greatest show on earth??? If so this gives the NPS a lot of leverage in that conversation. If we were willing to say NO to this gouging technique it might show we are truly the ones with the leverage. This really doesn't have anything to do with the original thread. However, if, as Nick said, these high profile jumps continue to happen (and they will), and the correct leverage is used in places where money matters we could easily see the reduction or elimination of many barriers to legal jumping, especially in the US. No offense to you, Avery, or any one else for that matter, just thoughts...

Like everyone else said "There are a lot of variables!" However... I took a two second delay from 1400' slider up with a Flik 293/small mesh slider, slider was quartered and I had rubber bands holding the inside flaps. My opening from release of PC to swinging under a full canopy was about 2 seconds. I got lucky and it was perfectly on heading. If I had truely taken the 8-9 seconds I had intended I might have been in for one hell of an opening shock. I have taken this configuration with a pro-pack terminal twice and both times you could hear my exclamations on opening. I reviewed some of the other openings that weekend and they were around 1 sec from throw to whoa. They were taking 8-10 second delays. I don't have ANY terminal BASE experience so I'm not sure these measurements are the norm. Anybody???

Nick, You raise some very good points. What do you think would happen if Jason told NPS to get f'd with their monsterous increase in fees and we all just showed up and jumped anyway? Do you think the local political leaders and business owners would defend our use of the bridge if the NPS had the gall to try to arrest everyone that jumps? Do you think the NPS would even try to arrest us with 250,000 people on hand to witness that it was nothing different than the years before? National and international news crews on hand to witness the biggest non-organized BASE protest in history. A chance to demonstrate the reality of "It can't be stopped anyway!"

His name is Rollover Ray, but anyway... Congrats Ray! When I heard you were PW'd I didn't think this would be the outcome. She must be on hellofa girl to capture your wild ass. So where you gonna live so we can all come visit?

None taken...

My point exactly. Did you break a law? Why would you jump to the conclusion Jeb did in this instance. Just because your charged with something doesn't mean there was a law broken or in other words an illegality even happened. Not the smartest move I've seen someone do in a while, but you and I don't know the whole story. There may have been very good reason it went the way it did, when it did. Under the Patriot Act Jeb could have been held indefinitly without cause. Apparently, authorities have already decided what he did was not that serious. What was his bond? Was he released on OR? All the things point to the severity of the crime and the risk of flight. I don't think this is such a big deal yet people are getting very worked up over it...

Innocent until proven guilty is not a farce it is the law and until that is changed our lives are impacted by it. I still don't think there is currently a law regarding being on the other side of the barrier. What would of, could of, or should of happened is just pure speculation...

I'm glad you've never been on one of my juries. He has not been found guilty of breaking the law. He has been charged with several crimes but that or your opinion do not make him guilty. If there is a law for being on the other side of the railing than we have enough evidence to say he broke the law, but I'd bet there is no law against that. Let's look at reckless endangerment. I would say there is just as much basis to charge the people grabbing him with that charge, but of course they're cops and they can do anything... As for Jeb, I would conclude there was nothing reckless about what he did. It was quite planned and since he never left the edge he endangered no one. It's perceptions like yours and others that have people come up to us at legal objects, where we're packing in the park at the top or bottom and ask us "Is this legal?" As far as I know the only place BASE jumping is illegal is in the NP's and perhaps that new object in France. Everything else is generally trespassing or some other trumped up charge.

My BASE toggles have snaps at the top and they are quite new, Aug '05. They seem very secure. So secure one of my friends said he experienced a toggle hangup. I still use them. My skydiving toggles uses reinforced tabs which attach under elastic keepers. Both the top and bottom tabs exit the keepers from the bottom. So there's no issue of pushing up and then pulling down. I think this design would work well on a BASE rig, but there is a slight risk of creating enough momentum at opening, long delay slider off or worn elastic for instance, that the toggles could simply fall out of the elastic causing a premature release. Also the pressures applied during packing, moving, climbing, etc could dislodge a toggle. It's much cleaner and probably lower maintenance to go velcroless. I don't think the costs difference would be significant. Hey let's have Nitro Rigging make a set so we can try them out.

Damn magot, I hadn't seen the pre-strike footage before. YOU'RE SO COOL!!! I just thought you were a doped up, pain in the ass with a hurt foot. That was a hell of a 2-way.

Whenever I want to... That will probably be when it doesn't excite me or I'm unable to participate.

I'd still think it was cool! Unless you painted some ridiculous graffiti on the bathroom wall before you jumped...

Nick, I'm definitely not "one of the masses", but I would applaud anyone who put that much effort into a jump. Did Jeb heat it up for the rest of us? Maybe, but probably not. Even other buildings in NYC won't be that much more difficult than before. Whose to say Jeb didn't call security himself. If it was a publicity stunt, as some think, wouldn't that make it even better? If it was someone in the know, which I'm sure are very few, wouldn't they have said he'd be dressed like a fat man? Jeb, good try!!! The same for whoever tries it next because the ante just went up...

He told me he was 15...maybe he was just trying to hookup???

Headed up there 2nd week of May. Anything happening around there?

I rode one of those a few years ago and it's quite possible to jump, or get catapulted, from it. The problem would be attitude. There is nothing to keep it from being upside down when you reach the top. And it wasn't $10 a ride it was like $60.

Then I definitly have the longest delay off of several objects.

That would take some serious balls and a lot of self confidence. Hell, I'm not sure balls that big woulf fit through the mouth of the cave...

I did not have sex with that man!

I slept with her husband...