Watching out for newbies [was - hard impact at Nats]

[mjosparky 4]

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Here's a quick crap quality vid of my crash..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF578oSkrKk

That scared the crap out me and I’m fearless.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[airtwardo 7]

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Just curious, do you have the toggle in your hand between the risers?

Yes, I always hold my toggles in my hands during HP landings.

No I was refering to what appeared to me that you had the toggle going between the risers and then over your hand...I don't swoop so I'm not making a comment either way other than that I don't personally put my hand through the risers...then again I don't put the toggle over my hand either...and I know swoopers are supposed to do that.

I was just kinda asking if that was planned and normal or just how it ends up sometimes....?

~ If you choke a Smurf, what color does it turn? ~

[david3 0]

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What went through you head the moment you realized you were gonna impact?

His femur...?


Too soon?


Glad you are going to be okay Sangi.

[PiLFy 3]

That was freakin brutal to even watch...

Sangi, I think you should post the uncut video, along w/your list of injuries. Hearing you gasp for breath, & others trying to attend to you, may help keep some other young hotshots from hurting themselves.

I hope you eventually make a full recovery, Sangi. I'm sorry this happened to you.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

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Sangi.... your turnaround in attitude has taken the fun out of a lot of threads here on the DZ.com. Hopefully, it will also translate into less incident reports? Heal fast.

Nah, wait for next season to start. We'll have another poster attacking Sangi and Docpop of being canopy nazi's who just don't understand how things work.

I hope he heals quick that video was scary.

Sadly this is all too true.

Sangi, I'm glad you survived your mistakes.

And I'm glad you learned from them and are brave enough to admit it.

"There are NO situations which do not call for a French Maid outfit." Lucky McSwervy

"~ya don't GET old by being weak & stupid!" - Airtwardo

[Willi91 0]

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That was freakin brutal to even watch...

Sangi, I think you should post the uncut video, along w/your list of injuries. Hearing you gasp for breath, & others trying to attend to you, may help keep some other young hotshots from hurting themselves.

I hope you eventually make a full recovery, Sangi. I'm sorry this happened to you.

I actually agree on this one.
Seeing things on video that scares the crap out of you and knowing that this could be you, is sometimes what is needed to make people remember, what they're dealing with.
At least thats my own opinion. I really do think ecerything through an extra time when seeing swoopers get hurt.

[JohnMitchell 16]

Impressive video. I'm glad you missed the asphalt. At what point in the swoop did you realize you were too low? Bailing at the 90 would have been great, probably at the 180 would have worked.

[Sangi 0]

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Impressive video. I'm glad you missed the asphalt. At what point in the swoop did you realize you were too low? Bailing at the 90 would have been great, probably at the 180 would have worked.

I probably realized I was too low when I was already coming into the ground, but I can't say for sure because my memories of that turn and crash are either super blurry or non existent..

"Dream as you'll live forever, live as you'll die today." James Dean

[hokierower 0]

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Impressive video. I'm glad you missed the asphalt. At what point in the swoop did you realize you were too low? Bailing at the 90 would have been great, probably at the 180 would have worked.

I probably realized I was too low when I was already coming into the ground, but I can't say for sure because my memories of that turn and crash are either super blurry or non existent..

Jesus, that was a jawdropper. What altitude were you at when you executed the 270? 300ft? That's pretty crazy, especially knowing that my Spectre 190 takes almost 400-500ft to execute a 360 turn and it's 60sf larger than your canopy and dives a lot less.

Heal up good.

[Sangi 0]

it was probably between 120 and 130 meters..

This was my usual turn altitude, I was so used to it, because I used to do my turns very quick (without noticing it myself, in my head they look slow, from the side they looked very quick) and I always had a very quick recovery and even still had like 5-10 meters left from the ground, but this time I did the turn slower, which resulted in a much longer rec arc which I didn't realize and I just whacked myself.

Changing the way you turn, but leaving the same initiation altitude is bad.

"Dream as you'll live forever, live as you'll die today." James Dean

[wildcard451 0]

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it was probably between 120 and 130 meters..

This was my usual turn altitude, I was so used to it, because I used to do my turns very quick (without noticing it myself, in my head they look slow, from the side they looked very quick) and I always had a very quick recovery and even still had like 5-10 meters left from the ground, but this time I did the turn slower, which resulted in a much longer rec arc which I didn't realize and I just whacked myself.

Changing the way you turn, but leaving the same initiation altitude is bad.

Just for the record....you had NO recovery arc on that turn, or it started about 0.25 sec prior to impact, and you still had some oversteer in there... You appeared to be holding the fronts until just before impact, while still turning. It would be hard to tell without outside video.

/not bashing on you man, just clarifying for others reading

[hokierower 0]

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it was probably between 120 and 130 meters..

This was my usual turn altitude, I was so used to it, because I used to do my turns very quick (without noticing it myself, in my head they look slow, from the side they looked very quick) and I always had a very quick recovery and even still had like 5-10 meters left from the ground, but this time I did the turn slower, which resulted in a much longer rec arc which I didn't realize and I just whacked myself.

Changing the way you turn, but leaving the same initiation altitude is bad.

Just for the record....you had NO recovery arc on that turn, or it started about 0.25 sec prior to impact, and you still had some oversteer in there... You appeared to be holding the fronts until just before impact, while still turning. It would be hard to tell without outside video.

/not bashing on you man, just clarifying for others reading

Completely agree, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if your canopy hit the ground at the same time you did. If that was the usual altitude for a 270 I don't know how you didn't bounce earlier than this because there was no way you were recovering after you continued onto the 270 after the 180.

[Scrumpot 1]

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I don't know how you didn't bounce earlier than this because there was no way you were recovering after you continued onto the 270 after the 180.

He knows (now) - and was told SEVERAL times before, that on his previous "swoops" (such that they even were), that he was already DANGEROUSLY "in the corner", and seen to be "digging-out" each and every prior. However, because he simply continued to get away with that, he just plain (until now) REFUSED to let himself prior - realize any better. On this (fateful) jump, he simply reduced his prior ZERO "margin(s)" to SUB-ZERO, and really - NEVER even realized how/what he was doing.

Same kinda mentality I think, but from a different aspect/issue with something else saw just this past weekend. I approached a jumper in a loading area I noticed with a gear alteration/issue - (another lowbie/newbie), and I pointed it out. ...The INSTANT response: "I've had it this way before, and it's okay (worked out so far)." Sometimes they just don't even know, what they don't even know - and "getting away" with something MARGINAL for a couple of times can really prove to be the WORST possible (set up for disaster!) combination.

I was able to pull the jumper aside and speak with them - got them to CONSIDER a little bit better and further, and HOPEFULLY got them to see the light to make a correction to the situation before they learned (as Sangi has only now done here) the hard way. I only wish that somehow, SOMEONE could have effectively gotten through to Sangi here, similarly. I've heard it over & over again - that there are SOME, that you just cannot (effectively) ever get through to, and that they really need to "learn their own lessons", for themselves. I dunno. I just can't bring myself to accept that though. So, regardless of (sometimes) continual or repeated frustration, I still - at least keep on trying.

Sangi - Now that you have experienced what you have, and you are going through what you are ...can you think of ANYTHING, or even any "style" perhaps of approach from anyone, that might have gotten through to you, BEFORE your incident has now occurred, which might have effectively helped you AVOID it? You now have a unique potential opportunity here, to maybe help OTHERS hopefully, avoid similar fate.

In short - was there ANYTHING Sangi, anyone could have ever said or done - that you can think of now in retrospect, that might have been more EFFECTIVE?

Hope you heal well and fully, and that you are in fact, able to return. I'm sure you will this time, progress with "pace", grace and humility, and hopefully further thereby - you can also become an effective mentor, to others. I know that if you do, and if you try - you will have my full support! FWIW

Blue Skies,
-Grant

coitus non circum - Moab Stone

[matt002 0]

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Seeing and hearing someone hook in is one hard way it gets brought home. Seeing first-person video might be another.

I dont think there is any way to get through to the future Sangis of this sport.
Its still too abstract on video, especially if the video is of some one that you do not know or care about.

In order to succeed in high risk environments, you must have faith in yourself and your ability, and you must believe at a sub conscious level that you will survive no matter what.
You may consciously know there is a chance that you wont, but you can never truly believe this, because if you do, you stop.

This personality trait is common to everyone who takes part in high risk activities, its like a spectrum with guys like sangi at one end and non-skydivers at the other, but make no mistake, it is a spectrum and we are all on it.
For example, your non skydiving friends may think that you are crazy and reckless for doing any kind of skydive, in the same way that we can look at anyone futher towards the risk end of the spectrum and say the same of them. Who is right? And how do we decide?
I find it funny how many of the people posting the 'I told you so's' further up this thread could well be the subject of this kind of thread themselves pretty soon. But of course, it only happens to someone else!

[virgin-burner 1]

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Seeing and hearing someone hook in is one hard way it gets brought home. Seeing first-person video might be another.

I dont think there is any way to get through to the future Sangis of this sport.
Its still too abstract on video, especially if the video is of some one that you do not know or care about.

In order to succeed in high risk environments, you must have faith in yourself and your ability, and you must believe at a sub conscious level that you will survive no matter what.
You may consciously know there is a chance that you wont, but you can never truly believe this, because if you do, you stop.

This personality trait is common to everyone who takes part in high risk activities, its like a spectrum with guys like sangi at one end and non-skydivers at the other, but make no mistake, it is a spectrum and we are all on it.
For example, your non skydiving friends may think that you are crazy and reckless for doing any kind of skydive, in the same way that we can look at anyone futher towards the risk end of the spectrum and say the same of them. Who is right? And how do we decide?
I find it funny how many of the people posting the 'I told you so's' further up this thread could well be the subject of this kind of thread themselves pretty soon. But of course, it only happens to someone else!

+1

“Some may never live, but the crazy never die.”
-Hunter S. Thompson
"No. Try not. Do... or do not. There is no try."
-Yoda

[mjosparky 4]

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Completely agree, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if your canopy hit the ground at the same time you did. If that was the usual altitude for a 270 I don't know how you didn't bounce earlier than this because there was no way you were recovering after you continued onto the 270 after the 180.

I am going to call bull shit on your post. I think you are just parroting what you have heard others say. With you experience level and time in the sport you couldn’t possibly know the sight picture for a 270 on any canopy much less one that is sub 150.

Posting something in a manner that indicates you know it to be fact can lead to problems. You can come to believe you do in fact have the knowledge and skills you post about.

Don’t take this as a flame but as a well meaning warning. Don’t let knowing the words convince you that you have the skills.

Sparky

My idea of a fair fight is clubbing baby seals

[holie 0]

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Completely agree, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if your canopy hit the ground at the same time you did. If that was the usual altitude for a 270 I don't know how you didn't bounce earlier than this because there was no way you were recovering after you continued onto the 270 after the 180.

I am going to call bull shit on your post. I think you are just parroting what you have heard others say. With you experience level and time in the sport you couldn’t possibly know the sight picture for a 270 on any canopy much less one that is sub 150.

Posting something in a manner that indicates you know it to be fact can lead to problems. You can come to believe you do in fact have the knowledge and skills you post about.

Don’t take this as a flame but as a well meaning warning. Don’t let knowing the words convince you that you have the skills.

Sparky

+1 !!

[billvon 3,070]

>Posting something in a manner that indicates you know it to be fact can
>lead to problems. You can come to believe you do in fact have the
>knowledge and skills you post about.

Agreed. Virgin-Burner is a classic example of this. He gave a lot of advice to Sangi (which fortunately he took) and has now decided that therefore he's an expert - and does not need to listen to people who give advice. Or more accurately, has decided he does not need to listen to people who give him advice that he doesn't like.

[Sangi 0]

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Just for the record....you had NO recovery arc on that turn, or it started about 0.25 sec prior to impact, and you still had some oversteer in there... You appeared to be holding the fronts until just before impact, while still turning. It would be hard to tell without outside video.

/not bashing on you man, just clarifying for others reading

Yes, you're probably right. I believe my turn was too slow and too hard (meaning I made the canopy dive faster and longer than I was used to and didn't realize that at that moment..).

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Sangi - Now that you have experienced what you have, and you are going through what you are ...can you think of ANYTHING, or even any "style" perhaps of approach from anyone, that might have gotten through to you, BEFORE your incident has now occurred, which might have effectively helped you AVOID it? You now have a unique potential opportunity here, to maybe help OTHERS hopefully, avoid similar fate.

Most likely seeing from the side in reality someone bounce like me would have scared me off and made me rethink how I'm approaching everything, but that's probably the only thing.

If I ever notice someone like me doing something similar to what I did I'll defo will try to save them by telling my story of pain and showing the visuals..

"Dream as you'll live forever, live as you'll die today." James Dean

[jakee 1,563]

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During the crash I did a very very slow 270 from around 120-130 meters, it wasn't enough height for the canopy to recover on it's own, I don't know why I didn't hit the brakes, because if I would have I would be perfectly fine now,

Sorry dude, but I think you wouldn't.

Your hand is still visible giving significant input to the left front riser approximately 1 second before impact, and it's probably still in your hand for another 1/2 second. By the time you let go of your fronts there is nothing you could have done to recover that canopy before pounding in. You misjudged it that badly. It's great that you appreciate now that you were fucking up, but even now you still don't get by how much.

Even if by some miracle you had got away with this one, it would have happened next weekend, or the one after, or the one after that...

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[DrewEckhardt 0]

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Seeing and hearing someone hook in is one hard way it gets brought home. Seeing first-person video might be another.

I dont think there is any way to get through to the future Sangis of this sport.
Its still too abstract on video, especially if the video is of some one that you do not know or care about.

Most skydivers think we're special snowflakes all unique with our own strengths.

This leads to the canonical new skydiver advice to "listen to your instructors" "who've seen you fly" when it comes to down-sizing, the implication being that those instructors can some how recognize skydivers' specialness and approve of more aggressive downsizing protocols which is complete crap.

People should be sizing their canopies based on the worst possible situation:

It's the sunset load, cute chicks flash the pilot for extra altitude, some one in your group gets hypoxic and catches their foot on the seatbelt so you take forever to climb out, you have a long spot so you're landing off, and the low light means you don't see power lines until you've almost on top of them so you make a low turn to avoid them for a down-wind landing on an asphalt road.

not the sunny-day scenario of into the wind in a sunny wide-open field that's neither hard nor taxing and gives skydivers an incomplete picture of their abilities.

Instructors and a skydiver could only observe that they're ready for a premature down-size if they're getting into such situations on a regular basis and handling them successfully. Either that hasn't happened and there's no basis for the special snow flake recommendation, or the skydiver in question is short bus special in the judgement department and shouldn't be downsizing faster.

Other sides to this are operating at a sufficiently low mental arousal level, developing muscle memory, and learning situational awareness.

People perform best in situations that are stimulating enough that they're not falling asleep, but not unfolding so fast that they're overwhelmed where things like freezing become common. Premature down-sizing makes it easy to over-stimulate yourself and do incorrect things like hanging onto a front riser or two until impact. You need enough jumps in slower situations with bigger canopies to get used to it so that's less likely to happen.

Although you can almost yank controls as far as you'd care to with impunity under larger parachutes, canopies get more sensitive to control inputs as they get smaller, whether intended or not. People with too few jumps on intermediate sizes instinctively make the big movements which worked on large canopies but turn little ones into the ground at unsurvivable speeds.

Situational awareness means you've been doing things long enough to notice that things aren't right hundreds or thousands of feet before you're in a dangerous situation. People need to ease into things, with a hundred or few jumps on the next larger size and easing into larger turns making it easier to notice what's wrong so they're less likely to hang on controls until it's too late.

Following Brian Germain's 1.0 + .1/100 jump wing loading formula (with more complications) seems to work well on those counts and combined with practicing the skills enumerated by Brian and Bill von Novak radically reduces your chances of ending up in the incident reports.

Instead of telling skydivers to follow their instructors' advice which probably won't be based on enough information and allows people to ask around until they get an answer they like we should be telling them to follow Brian's writings unless complicating factors (bad depth perception, poor accuracy, not flaring far enough to avoid running, etc) noted by them or some one else suggest they be even more conservative.

[Joellercoaster 6]

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This leads to the canonical new skydiver advice to "listen to your instructors" "who've seen you fly" when it comes to down-sizing, the implication being that those instructors can some how recognize skydivers' specialness and approve of more aggressive downsizing protocols which is complete crap.

Right. The fuck. On.

There is no idea so boneheaded or dangerous that you won't find one S&TA or guy with 15,000 jumps somewhere who'll tell you it's OK.

You are not a precious unique snowflake. People who haven't seen you fly are, in fact, still in a position to tell you something is a bad idea.

--
"I'll tell you how all skydivers are judged, . They are judged by the laws of physics." - kkeenan

"You jump out, pull the string and either live or die. What's there to be good at?

[JackC1 0]

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Instructors and a skydiver could only observe that they're ready for a premature down-size if they're getting into such situations on a regular basis and handling them successfully.

The successfully part I agree with, but if you're regularly getting yourself into shitty situations, you have bigger problems than premature downsizing. There is an old saying that a superior pilot is one who uses his superior judgement so as not to have to use his superior skill.

[piisfish 140]

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There is an old saying that a superior pilot is one who uses his superior judgement so as not to have to use his superior skill.

modifying and stealing for my sigline

scissors beat paper, paper beat rock, rock beat wingsuit - KarlM

[devildog 0]

That's really, really painful to watch. I think I'll bookmark it if I ever get the inkling to ever do anything passed normal progression.

You stop breathing for a few minutes and everyone jumps to conclusions.