pkasdorf 0 #1 January 20, 2004 It may sound as a contradiction but I say that: Skydiving is risky but safe Risky because you risk death everytime you jump out of an airplane Safe because human mistakes account for nearly 100% of accidents and human mistakes is what we can and should avoid by learning, training and knowing our limitations HISPA # 18 POPS # 8757 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AggieDave 6 #2 January 20, 2004 There is safety in the sport, but it is still an unsafe sport. Overall, the sport is a calculated risk. You can work to minimize the risk via training and proper judgement.--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
velo90 0 #3 January 20, 2004 To quote Winsor :- What part of flinging yourself bodily at the Earth from a couple of miles up strikes you as "safe? Dave Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
grega 0 #4 January 20, 2004 Like you said skydiving is safe, people are risky. Similar in traffic.If you put a car on the road it's as safe as it can be,but if you put a driver in it too it can be verrrryyy dangerous. Exactly the same with skydiving. so it's all up to you if it's safe or not. It's as safe as you make it (packing, flying, opening, landing...) About risk, huh Everyday living is risky "George just lucky i guess!" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
StearmanR985 0 #6 January 20, 2004 QuoteIt may sound as a contradiction but I say that: Skydiving is risky but safe Agreed. Believe it or not, I feel that I am less likely to be injured/killed skydiving than when I ride my motorcycle. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bsoder 0 #7 January 20, 2004 We had this discussion just recently. As long as you define "safe" as "safe enough" you're good. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites AndyMan 7 #8 January 20, 2004 Skydiving is not safe. You can do everything right, and still die. _Am__ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Remster 30 #9 January 20, 2004 Yes, Its very safe. Extremely safe. All those deaths and life altering injuries are just a statistical bleep in this normally safe activity.Remster Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites grega 0 #10 January 20, 2004 you're absolutely right And you can do nothing and sit all day long in a room, and still die if a meteor hits your house and you in it "George just lucky i guess!" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites AndyMan 7 #11 January 20, 2004 Quote And you can do nothing and sit all day long in a room, and still die if a meteor hits your house and you in it Do you really believe this? It happens, about once a year. Roughly 1 in 30 deaths in skydiving happen even though the jumper did everything right. It's not even the end of January and a tandem pair went in in Japan, aparently all handles pulled, everything done "right". If I wanted to take part in a "safe" sport, I would not jump from airplanes, I would ride roller coasters. _Am__ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites CanuckInUSA 0 #12 January 20, 2004 If you compare skydiving to base or free solo rock climbing, then yes it is safe. But do not fool yourself. Skydiving is NOT a safe sport. But it sure can be fun. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Remster 30 #13 January 20, 2004 QuoteIf I wanted to take part in a "safe" sport, I would not jump from airplanes, I would ride roller coasters. Ballroom dancing, maybe. Chess and bridge, that starting to stretch it. But roller coaster is a sport too now? Skydiving adds a significant risk to your health. Dont forget it. Anything you do in life does, but if you skydive, even without doing a long exhautive stats analysis, I'm sure you'll get injured or killed by it before getting hit by a meteor.Remster Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites pkasdorf 0 #14 January 20, 2004 Quote Roughly 1 in 30 deaths in skydiving happen even though the jumper did everything right. So 97% are due to own human mistake... and a further percentage that puts it near the 100% mark are due to mistakes made by someone other. My point is that equipment failure is absolutely exceptional nowadays. It definitely depends on where you put the bar for "safe". No doubt it is risky! HISPA # 18 POPS # 8757 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites relyon 0 #15 January 20, 2004 Nothing is safe and we all die. Bob Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites quade 4 #16 January 20, 2004 Not only is skydiving not safe, but it's also freekishly random. A person rides a man/reserve entanglement all the way in, dusts himself off and walks away with no more than a bruise. A person has a perfectly normal landing right until she trips over a gopher hole, her chest mounted altimeter catches her in the throat and she dies. Also, nearly 100% is not 100%. Gear malfuntions happen and people die because of them. If you think otherwise, you're only fooling yourself.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites GravityGirl 0 #17 January 20, 2004 Well. From the mouths of babes: Me: Jett, get off the stairs. Jett: Why? Me: Because if you fall from way up there, you are going to get hurt really bad. Jett: How come? Me: Because that is a long fall and you can hurt your body very bad if you fall. Jett: Why? Me: Jett. Playing on the stairs is dangerous! Please come down now! Jett: Mom. Skydiving is dangerous. Great. Now I have to have a risk factor acceptance talk with my 2.5 year old. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Peace and Blue Skies! Bonnie ==>Gravity Gear! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites rigging65 0 #18 January 20, 2004 Nothing about this sport is safe. Make no bones about it. You're committing suicide every time you get out of an airplane until you decide to alter the inevitable course...by throwing out a limp piece of cloth that you hope will catch air and pull out a little stainless steel pin that you can bend with your fingers. If nothing goes wrong there, then all you need if for a bunch of slack lines to release in the proper order from a bag that is being drug away from you without any real sort of stabilization, then dumps a mass of material (without shape) into a 120 mph slipstream. You're then relying on the fact that air should go into the mass of material and sort it out...taking you from 120 mph (or faster ) to near 0 mph in somewhere around 4-5 seconds (try that in your car and see how safe you feel). If all that doesn't kill you, you've still got to fly this inflated mass of nylon through the air with no source of power to create lift if you need a go-around or something. You fly into some sort of a pattern with a bunch of other people who probably have no true flight training, then attempt to time a last ditch effort to create lift from your mass of nylon just in time to keep you from glancing off the ground while going 25 mph. If all that doesn't get you, then you go and haphazardly flip and flop the mass of nylon around until you can get it jammed into a little black bag, so that you can cram it into a bunch of nylon strips that will hold it to your back while you go tempt fate again. Yeah, sounds real safe to me.... "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites pkasdorf 0 #19 January 20, 2004 QuoteNot only is skydiving not safe, but it's also freekishly random. A person rides a man/reserve entanglement all the way in, dusts himself off and walks away with no more than a bruise. A person has a perfectly normal landing right until she trips over a gopher hole, her chest mounted altimeter catches her in the throat and she dies. Also, nearly 100% is not 100%. Gear malfuntions happen and people die because of them. If you think otherwise, you're only fooling yourself. I can assure you that I am not fooling myself! Of course near 100% is not 100%. I honestly think that the statement RISKY BUT SAFE implies exactly what skydiving is, a risky sport that you can enjoy in a safe manner, as safe as a risky sport can be. 100% safe does not exist in any risky activity. HISPA # 18 POPS # 8757 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Jessica 0 #20 January 20, 2004 Quotehuman mistakes is what we can and should avoid by learning, training and knowing our limitations "Human mistakes" are a very real part of this sport. I'm a bright, responsible woman who jumped when it was windy and smashed the fuck out of her pelvis. You can't discount human nature in your evaluation of skydiving's "safety." People are not infallable. Many injuries and fatalities are traceable to human error. That doesn't mean they're not going to happen again and again. A sloppy gear check, a quick downsize without proper canopy training, misjudged altitude, a bad spot...these are things that are unfortunately not going to disappear.Skydiving is for cool people only Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites rigging65 0 #21 January 20, 2004 QuoteMany injuries and fatalities are traceable to human error. And the really shitty part is that even when you do every possible thing right and by-the-book, it's still possible for you to end up dead or near dead. I speak from very personal, very first-hand experience with this one folks. This sport is not safe. You do the best you can to stack the odds in your favor, but that's all you can do: risk management. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites elfanie 0 #22 January 20, 2004 Quote And the really shitty part is that even when you do every possible thing right and by-the-book, it's still possible for you to end up dead or near dead. I speak from very personal, very first-hand experience with this one folks. This sport is not safe. You do the best you can to stack the odds in your favor, but that's all you can do: risk management. and how is that different than everything else we do in life? I drive very conservatively and very defensively. I follow the rules (often to my husband's chagrin) and do everything I can to make it as safe as possible. I can still get creamed taking my daughter to gymnastics class..or going to the grocery store. I lock the doors on my house and we take steps to try to ensure our safety...but every year that are many break ins in which people are killed. Knowing someone who has died from one thing or another doesn't make the risk greater or make it more real or whatever...just makes it more emotional to the person who has experienced it. I agree that skydiving has risk...but I believe it to be safe according to my definition of safe. (my definition of safe doesn't mean "without any risk"...I doubt that anyone's definition of safe truly means that, anyways.) -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Ron 10 #23 January 20, 2004 Not safe. You can limit the risks, but you can do everything right and still die. 1/1,000 folks in the USPA in the US will die this year. Odds are you will know one of them. There is nothing safe about the sport, only some really neat ways to reduce the chance of a fatality. God I wish folks would quit acting like this is safe. It can be done safley...but that does not make it safe. And I don't want to hear Bullshit about meteors falling on my head.... There are Billions of folks that could get hit by a meteor just in the US...The USPA says there are only 35000 active jumpers...yet 30 still die a year. When was the last time you heard of a meteor hitting someone?"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites velo90 0 #24 January 20, 2004 QuoteThere are Billions of folks that could get hit by a meteor just in the US... Just how many people live in the US? Dave Edited to add : maybe that was your point Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Newbie 0 #25 January 20, 2004 i agree with what you said, but i don't think im "committing suicide everytime i jump unless i do something". That would imply i'm trying to kill myself - or - i like the idea of death. I'm doing something that makes me feel more alive. Serious injury/death is the outcome if you don't do what you have been trained, or by Murphy showing up, but is the one thing we all want to avoid at all costs right? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next Page 1 of 9 Join the conversation You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Reply to this topic... × Pasted as rich text. Paste as plain text instead Only 75 emoji are allowed. × Your link has been automatically embedded. Display as a link instead × Your previous content has been restored. Clear editor × You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL. Insert image from URL × Desktop Tablet Phone Submit Reply 0 Go To Topic Listing
AndyMan 7 #8 January 20, 2004 Skydiving is not safe. You can do everything right, and still die. _Am__ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Remster 30 #9 January 20, 2004 Yes, Its very safe. Extremely safe. All those deaths and life altering injuries are just a statistical bleep in this normally safe activity.Remster Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
grega 0 #10 January 20, 2004 you're absolutely right And you can do nothing and sit all day long in a room, and still die if a meteor hits your house and you in it "George just lucky i guess!" Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AndyMan 7 #11 January 20, 2004 Quote And you can do nothing and sit all day long in a room, and still die if a meteor hits your house and you in it Do you really believe this? It happens, about once a year. Roughly 1 in 30 deaths in skydiving happen even though the jumper did everything right. It's not even the end of January and a tandem pair went in in Japan, aparently all handles pulled, everything done "right". If I wanted to take part in a "safe" sport, I would not jump from airplanes, I would ride roller coasters. _Am__ You put the fun in "funnel" - craichead. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
CanuckInUSA 0 #12 January 20, 2004 If you compare skydiving to base or free solo rock climbing, then yes it is safe. But do not fool yourself. Skydiving is NOT a safe sport. But it sure can be fun. Try not to worry about the things you have no control over Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Remster 30 #13 January 20, 2004 QuoteIf I wanted to take part in a "safe" sport, I would not jump from airplanes, I would ride roller coasters. Ballroom dancing, maybe. Chess and bridge, that starting to stretch it. But roller coaster is a sport too now? Skydiving adds a significant risk to your health. Dont forget it. Anything you do in life does, but if you skydive, even without doing a long exhautive stats analysis, I'm sure you'll get injured or killed by it before getting hit by a meteor.Remster Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pkasdorf 0 #14 January 20, 2004 Quote Roughly 1 in 30 deaths in skydiving happen even though the jumper did everything right. So 97% are due to own human mistake... and a further percentage that puts it near the 100% mark are due to mistakes made by someone other. My point is that equipment failure is absolutely exceptional nowadays. It definitely depends on where you put the bar for "safe". No doubt it is risky! HISPA # 18 POPS # 8757 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
relyon 0 #15 January 20, 2004 Nothing is safe and we all die. Bob Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
quade 4 #16 January 20, 2004 Not only is skydiving not safe, but it's also freekishly random. A person rides a man/reserve entanglement all the way in, dusts himself off and walks away with no more than a bruise. A person has a perfectly normal landing right until she trips over a gopher hole, her chest mounted altimeter catches her in the throat and she dies. Also, nearly 100% is not 100%. Gear malfuntions happen and people die because of them. If you think otherwise, you're only fooling yourself.quade - The World's Most Boring Skydiver Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GravityGirl 0 #17 January 20, 2004 Well. From the mouths of babes: Me: Jett, get off the stairs. Jett: Why? Me: Because if you fall from way up there, you are going to get hurt really bad. Jett: How come? Me: Because that is a long fall and you can hurt your body very bad if you fall. Jett: Why? Me: Jett. Playing on the stairs is dangerous! Please come down now! Jett: Mom. Skydiving is dangerous. Great. Now I have to have a risk factor acceptance talk with my 2.5 year old. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Peace and Blue Skies! Bonnie ==>Gravity Gear! Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rigging65 0 #18 January 20, 2004 Nothing about this sport is safe. Make no bones about it. You're committing suicide every time you get out of an airplane until you decide to alter the inevitable course...by throwing out a limp piece of cloth that you hope will catch air and pull out a little stainless steel pin that you can bend with your fingers. If nothing goes wrong there, then all you need if for a bunch of slack lines to release in the proper order from a bag that is being drug away from you without any real sort of stabilization, then dumps a mass of material (without shape) into a 120 mph slipstream. You're then relying on the fact that air should go into the mass of material and sort it out...taking you from 120 mph (or faster ) to near 0 mph in somewhere around 4-5 seconds (try that in your car and see how safe you feel). If all that doesn't kill you, you've still got to fly this inflated mass of nylon through the air with no source of power to create lift if you need a go-around or something. You fly into some sort of a pattern with a bunch of other people who probably have no true flight training, then attempt to time a last ditch effort to create lift from your mass of nylon just in time to keep you from glancing off the ground while going 25 mph. If all that doesn't get you, then you go and haphazardly flip and flop the mass of nylon around until you can get it jammed into a little black bag, so that you can cram it into a bunch of nylon strips that will hold it to your back while you go tempt fate again. Yeah, sounds real safe to me.... "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pkasdorf 0 #19 January 20, 2004 QuoteNot only is skydiving not safe, but it's also freekishly random. A person rides a man/reserve entanglement all the way in, dusts himself off and walks away with no more than a bruise. A person has a perfectly normal landing right until she trips over a gopher hole, her chest mounted altimeter catches her in the throat and she dies. Also, nearly 100% is not 100%. Gear malfuntions happen and people die because of them. If you think otherwise, you're only fooling yourself. I can assure you that I am not fooling myself! Of course near 100% is not 100%. I honestly think that the statement RISKY BUT SAFE implies exactly what skydiving is, a risky sport that you can enjoy in a safe manner, as safe as a risky sport can be. 100% safe does not exist in any risky activity. HISPA # 18 POPS # 8757 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jessica 0 #20 January 20, 2004 Quotehuman mistakes is what we can and should avoid by learning, training and knowing our limitations "Human mistakes" are a very real part of this sport. I'm a bright, responsible woman who jumped when it was windy and smashed the fuck out of her pelvis. You can't discount human nature in your evaluation of skydiving's "safety." People are not infallable. Many injuries and fatalities are traceable to human error. That doesn't mean they're not going to happen again and again. A sloppy gear check, a quick downsize without proper canopy training, misjudged altitude, a bad spot...these are things that are unfortunately not going to disappear.Skydiving is for cool people only Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rigging65 0 #21 January 20, 2004 QuoteMany injuries and fatalities are traceable to human error. And the really shitty part is that even when you do every possible thing right and by-the-book, it's still possible for you to end up dead or near dead. I speak from very personal, very first-hand experience with this one folks. This sport is not safe. You do the best you can to stack the odds in your favor, but that's all you can do: risk management. "...and once you had tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward. For there you have been, and there you long to return..." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
elfanie 0 #22 January 20, 2004 Quote And the really shitty part is that even when you do every possible thing right and by-the-book, it's still possible for you to end up dead or near dead. I speak from very personal, very first-hand experience with this one folks. This sport is not safe. You do the best you can to stack the odds in your favor, but that's all you can do: risk management. and how is that different than everything else we do in life? I drive very conservatively and very defensively. I follow the rules (often to my husband's chagrin) and do everything I can to make it as safe as possible. I can still get creamed taking my daughter to gymnastics class..or going to the grocery store. I lock the doors on my house and we take steps to try to ensure our safety...but every year that are many break ins in which people are killed. Knowing someone who has died from one thing or another doesn't make the risk greater or make it more real or whatever...just makes it more emotional to the person who has experienced it. I agree that skydiving has risk...but I believe it to be safe according to my definition of safe. (my definition of safe doesn't mean "without any risk"...I doubt that anyone's definition of safe truly means that, anyways.) -------------------------------------------- Elfanie My Skydiving Page Fly Safe - Soft Landings Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Ron 10 #23 January 20, 2004 Not safe. You can limit the risks, but you can do everything right and still die. 1/1,000 folks in the USPA in the US will die this year. Odds are you will know one of them. There is nothing safe about the sport, only some really neat ways to reduce the chance of a fatality. God I wish folks would quit acting like this is safe. It can be done safley...but that does not make it safe. And I don't want to hear Bullshit about meteors falling on my head.... There are Billions of folks that could get hit by a meteor just in the US...The USPA says there are only 35000 active jumpers...yet 30 still die a year. When was the last time you heard of a meteor hitting someone?"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
velo90 0 #24 January 20, 2004 QuoteThere are Billions of folks that could get hit by a meteor just in the US... Just how many people live in the US? Dave Edited to add : maybe that was your point Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Newbie 0 #25 January 20, 2004 i agree with what you said, but i don't think im "committing suicide everytime i jump unless i do something". That would imply i'm trying to kill myself - or - i like the idea of death. I'm doing something that makes me feel more alive. Serious injury/death is the outcome if you don't do what you have been trained, or by Murphy showing up, but is the one thing we all want to avoid at all costs right? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next Page 1 of 9 Join the conversation You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account. Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible. Reply to this topic... × Pasted as rich text. Paste as plain text instead Only 75 emoji are allowed. × Your link has been automatically embedded. Display as a link instead × Your previous content has been restored. Clear editor × You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL. Insert image from URL × Desktop Tablet Phone Submit Reply 0
Newbie 0 #25 January 20, 2004 i agree with what you said, but i don't think im "committing suicide everytime i jump unless i do something". That would imply i'm trying to kill myself - or - i like the idea of death. I'm doing something that makes me feel more alive. Serious injury/death is the outcome if you don't do what you have been trained, or by Murphy showing up, but is the one thing we all want to avoid at all costs right? "Skydiving is a door" Happythoughts Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
