Once a science fiction movie it played:
Bad alien/bad cyborg/whatever: “You are going to die”
Our hero: “Yes, but not today”.
The same for me yesterday night. It is was not my day to leave you all.
Close call really. Start the flame on me if you like. I have been really lucky.
Pre-story: pack job performed the night before (finished very, very late at night…) for our local A, three wrap with larks head (black rubber band) to be jumped in freefall.
Story: Yesterday #86? called me.
#86?:”Hi #689, we are going to do the new B tonight at 21:30” (note: jumpable only in S.L.)
#689: “OK, fine, but why 21:30? It’s too early…”
#86?:”No,. it’s OK, there are no people around, we’ll see….”
#689: “No, this early I am not going to jump…bla bla bla…”
when it is about B, I am easily convinced (in the end, the action took place just few minutes before midnight).
When I got back home from work before heading to the action, I reconfigured my pack job from freefall to S.L., i.e.: removed standard bridle, rigged on my special bridle with “carry-with-you-SL”, put on as backup a 48” PC and taken the four Multi strands out of the sheath and put these strands inside the very small rubber bands (I use very thin elastic bands, the ones used in office). I had obviously to leave the black rubber bands three wraps in position…, I say “I had to..” because if I plan in advance the SL jump, I pack doing only 2 wraps.
I got to the action site, S.L. jump with landing inside a public park (closed at the time of action) delimited by 2 m high rail-guard with spears on top, must be jumped in S.L., must fly over the B sidewalk tree row, over the “inside-the-park-but-close-to-the-rail-guard” tree row and land inside the park (there is not other option) where there are trees here in and there but there are landable spots in between.
Visual inspection, nobody around, in the end we were up. Rigged the three S.L.'s with break cord. I was first. Nice exit, very soon I have the "open" canopy and got immediately the toggles in my hand.
But the parachute was sort of constrained, had a very slowly forward speed. My eyes up again: I saw immediately that I had left the closing loop I use while packing to the keep the lines together in its position, just above the links towards the canopy (note: the tail gate, notwithstanding the black rubber band three wraps with larks head and notwithstanding the relatively small vertical airspeed due to the SL jump and notwithstanding the constraint the parachute had just above the links, opened nicely).
I did not remove it…
I wanted so badly to abandon myself to a good panic attack but I realized there was NO time for panicking, the time left (before landing/impact) was much better useful for flying and see the least bad possibility to put my body on the ground. Forward speed was low but still I was able to steer the canopy with toggles, I saw a gap in between few trees and I managed someway somehow to fly into them. Luckily, I touched with my feet few branches of one tree with myself flying down in the middle of them. Then (I suppose) the tree branches of them all managed to slow down the landing, ending with myself in stand up in the middle of these few trees, just few lines over few branches and PC over another branch, easily and quickly collected by a modest pull. I did not have a single scratch (but who knows what I touched in the landing process, and moreover I was jumping with all my usual protections: full upper body jacket with hard plastic pads (forearm/elbow/shoulder), plus shin/knee hard pads plus FD full face helmet, plus high ankle trekking boots).
Quickly I sticked canopy and harness into stash bag and run off the shelter of trees so that my mates (2) could see me, while running I heard a whistle so I knew they saw me in good shape.
I was the first to reach the cars, after very few minutes (that to me seemed an eternity) my mates showed up. Jumped into cars, drove off and in front of a slice of pizza few minutes later we were commenting the event. I didn’t know how to feel, if to be happy for having walked away with it without a single scratch or if to be shocked for the really close call.
With this post, I know that I put myself in the roast room ready to be flamed but I am doing so only to share my experience with all of you in order to avoid ANY possibility of ending with the above situation.
Lessons learned:
1) Do not pack late at night and/or when you are shattered by fatigue of a hard day of work/whichever other way you can be shattered by fatigue
2) Do not use any packing tool that constrains canopy/lined unless strictly needed
3) If you cannot comply with above point, at least make your constraining device so colourful and so big, so huge, so long that it is IMPOSSIBLE to be left in place as a mistake
I hope the present post, that WILL cause me a lot of flaming indeed, can be useful for the whole community.
Keep always in mind what Rick writes downs at the end of the letter by which he informs us of our newly got BASE number: “Pay attention to details”, sometimes it takes so small detail/s that goes/go wrong to get your jumping day to start rapidly deteriorating and ending with a free ride into the white bus with flashing lights or, worse, ending with a free ride into the black TAXI without the “TAXI” writing on top.
Just my 0.02€.
Stay safe out there
Blue Skies and Soft Walls
BASE #689 :D
e-mail: base_689@yahoo.com
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