Posted on Thu, Jan. 29, 2004
Accident puts extreme senior on the shelf
By ERIN FITZGERALD The Kansas City Star
JOHN SLEEZER/The Kansas City Star
Badly injured in a BASE jumping accident last year, Jim Guyer, 75, worked in an upper body exercise class Wednesday at Mid-America Rehabilitation Hospital in Overland Park.
CHRIS OBERHOLTZ/ The Kansas City Star
Guyer let go of an airplane wing strut and headed for the drop zone 9,000 feet below during a
skydiving adventure last year over an area between Lexington and Henrietta, Mo.
Last year, Jim Guyer was leaping from airplanes and floating down under a brightly colored canopy.
Now the Overland Park skydiver and BASE jumper is unable to walk without assistance.
The 75-year-old's most recent BASE jump (
building,
antenna tower, span and
earth) was supposed to be a 350-foot leap onto a dirt road from a canyon wall at Black Dragon Wash, near Green River, Utah.
Guyer made it only 300 feet. A dip of a shoulder as he hurled himself from the edge probably caused his canopy to open backward, facing the wall. Twice, his body slammed into the smooth rock of the canyon.
He landed in an area filled with car-sized boulders, about 50 feet above the road.
Guyer can't recall the accident in November or the days afterward. But witnesses haven't forgotten.
Jimmy Pouchert, a fellow jumper, drove as close as he could and then hurried up the slope, praying Guyer was still alive.
“When somebody is in this kind of an accident, there is a fine line between living and dying,” said Pouchert, 37. “And I've seen both sides.”
BASE jumpers know the risk, said Johnny Woodie, 55, another witness.
“Like I heard one other guy say, ‘It's suicide without the commitment,' ” Woodie said. “Once you jump off of a bridge, or cliff or building, you've got to save yourself. No one else can do it once you leave that object. It's just you then.”
Judy Guyer learned about her husband's accident from a voice on her answering machine in Overland Park.
“It was horrible,” she said. “From the time he started jumping, I was always afraid I was going to get a call like that. And to have it happen, it was just awful.”
Jim Guyer is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., and former paratrooper, a former stockbroker and Miller Brewing Co. executive. He ran marathons in his 40s and 50s, and completed triathlons in his 60s.
He took up skydiving in his 70s and later started BASE jumping. He holds a Guinness World Record for oldest BASE jumper and has about 50 jumps and more than 1,100 skydives.
He's no stranger to injuries. Last year, he broke his left leg while jumping off a bridge.
But he has never endured injuries as severe as these: a fractured skull, multiple fractures in his face, a broken hip, broken bones in his ankle, a broken leg and a brain injury.
Guyer lost his long- and short-term memory.
“You just have to laugh,” his wife said, “because at one point, he didn't remember who he was.”
Guyer thought he was a colonel in the Army in Fort Worth, Texas, there to train troops. Then he thought he was in France, speaking
French to those in the room.
I said ‘Jim, we're not in France,' ” Judy Guyer said. “He said ‘Are we in Italy? I don't know how to speak
Italian.' ''
Guyer spent about six weeks at a hospital in Salt Lake City before returning home to Overland Park this month. He has regained his long-term memory and is working on the short-term.
Now he's at Mid-America Rehabilitation Hospital in Overland Park, undergoing physical and occupational rehabilitation and speech therapy.
On Wednesday, Guyer performed upper body exercises in a class with about 10 others, also in wheelchairs.
Guyer is expected to walk eventually, but his doctors don't think he'll be able to jump again, Judy Guyer said. His hip and brain injuries make it too risky.
Still, Jim Guyer holds out hope. It's that hope that seems to help him through the recovery process.
“A lot of people play bridge, some play chess and some go on marathon races,” Guyer said. “It's just what you seem to enjoy, what you like. What I'm doing is kind of reaching for the limits, and it's fun.”
To reach Erin Fitzgerald, call
(816) 234-7722 or send e-mail to
efitzgerald@kcstar.com.
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