Complacency hurts

[yardhippie 0]

I wrote this after this past weekend, and I'll be submitting it for our weekly newsletter that comes out of our DZ. We've had a couple incidents lately, and I felt like it never hurts to get a little reminder once in a while. Enjoy.

So you’ve been skydiving for a few decades, years or only a few weeks. You’re probably jumping with your friends for much of that. I’ll bet you didn’t know you or someone you jump with may have some bad habits. Maybe just little ones that aren’t any big deal, like a little back slide, some orbiting, reaching for docks, or even going a little low. Are you aware of these habits? Have others told you of these habits? What are the potential dangers of these habits? Well as two jumpers experienced this past weekend getting low and under a formation can quickly end a weekend of skydiving. On a three-way freefly jump, jumper 1 was a little outside of the other two. When jumper 1 realized this, he drove into the formation. While making this move jumper 1 sank a little low. As the low jumper drove in and now a little low, he ended up under jumper 2. Always keeping his eyes on the formation jumper 1 accidentally ended up on his back with a slower fall rate than the other two jumpers. The difference in fall rate, and relative positions caused jumper 1 to impact with jumper 2, who was in a sit position, hyper-extending jumper 2’s shoulder. This now caused jumper 2 to become unstable while he tried to evaluate his altitude, seriousness of injury, and ability to continue. Knowing that Jumper 1 and 3 were still near, he regained some stability, but lacked the ability to effectively use his left arm. Also with tandems and students behind him, deployment could have potential catastrophic consequences. He then did the best he could to continue the fall rate associated with a freefly jump, and remain in the relative airspace of jumper 1 and 3 until break-off. Jumper 2 deployed normally and landed without incident. Jumper 1 was uninjured. The pain associated with his injury kept him from skydiving for the rest of the weekend. Luckily it was only a minor injury.
What can we learn from this? Complacency can hurt or kill. Jumper 1 has over 1000 skydives and jumper 2 has over 700, these being made in the past 5 years. They have been jumping together for over a year making approximately 100 two ways within that year. Each are skilled freefliers, but this does not prevent accidents.
So what went wrong? Making so many skydives together the two became complacent with the “little” bad habits they had. While if either had been on a skydive with another jumper who went low or was “out” of the formation there would have been some discussion. Don’t let the fact you jump with someone repeatedly every weekend allow you to become complacent.
What if? There are plenty of what “ifs”. What if the jumper who was injured was on his head rather than in a sit? What if the injured jumper, who flies a highly loaded elliptical canopy, had a dislocated shoulder and had been forced to land with one arm? The idea we want to present to jumpers new and old is: do not let the small bad habits continue. This can happen in any discipline, not just freeflying! If you have video of your dive look at those great docks, and awesome formations but also the things that were not executed as they should have been. Note bad habits to others and to yourself. Just because you or another jumper has hundreds or thousands of skydives more than another, they can still make a mistake.
Talk about it, listen to it, learn from it. If someone TALKS you about your flying, or canopy piloting or even packing, LISTEN to what they have to say. If you hear the same thing over and over, they may be right. It doesn’t mean they are right, and if you doubt their input, seek advice from your S&TA, or other source of information and LEARN why the comment was made. It doesn’t mean they are trying to be rude or bossy. Skydivers are a tight niche group. We look after each other. We care for each other. Those we care for, we want to protect.
I’m ready for the next load, are you?

Goddam dirty hippies piss me off! ~GFD
"What do I get for closing your rig?" ~ me
"Anything you want." ~ female skydiver
Mohoso Rodriguez #865

[Peej 0]

Nicely written dude, i hope there are some newbies and some experienced people who learn from this.

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