Blue Skies
I got a text yesterday, “Someone died at Lodi today.” My heart stopped and I tried to remember who I had talked to on Facebook from the dropzone that morning. It felt like someone just shook my brain and I couldn’t get it to slow down quick enough to roll through everyone I love there.
My friend Wendi pulled her car over and we began dialing the numbers of our skyfamily, hoping beyond hope that they answered.
It wasn’t either of them, but the news was heartbreaking none the less. We lost one of our women jumpers and the loved one of someone we all care very deeply for. The reports are indicating that it wasn’t an accident and my heart breaks even more for those in her inner circle.
The impact on Facebook is one I knew would come. I saw a post from someone telling one of our team members to please stop jumping. I read some very hurtful things on the news bog comment section saying that if we are that stupid to jump out of a plane that we deserve what happens. To that I say, ‘fuck you, asshole’.
It’s time like this that I begin to get frustrated with people who don’t understand this sport….or any sport for that matter.
There is risk in EVERY single thing you do.
Should we say to a bikecyclist, “Well, if he’s dumb enough to ride his bike on a street with cars, he deserved to be hit!” Or the mountain climber, ‘If he’s dumb enough to try to climb it…” or what about the story a friend told me before I started skydiving about how one of his patients was getting on a bus, slipped and hit her head and died.” Should she be told that because she was stupid enough to ride a bus, she deserved to die? No. If it’s in a sport or driving to work…there is a risk.
In skydiving the rules of safety isn’t something we take lightly or disregard at whim. Not only are we trained by people that have spent their lives learning this sport and going through training themselves just to be able to train someone else, we are SURROUNDED by people that look out for each other. The things we do to ensure our safety isn’t something that someone on the outside of our sport sees. For that, I understand their ignorance. I was that ignorant. I was that person who said it was stupidest thing in the whole world and there was no way in hell you would get me to do it. After I did it though, I got it on a whole new level. It took me quite some time and training by one amazing instructor that taught me what it means to be safe.
I have learned from those around me about stepping back when you shouldn’t jump. One of the girls wasn’t jumping because her AAD needed to be replaced. She refused to jump without it. Another one rode the plane up and when she realized she couldn’t see her dropzone she opted to ride the plane down. The winds are too fast, the plane doesn’t go up. Every six months our rigger has a warehouse full of parachutes that need to have their reserve repacked and that means that there are skydivers itching to get back into the sky, but know the rules of safety and will have to wait. When packing a parachute, you might get a perfect stranger walk up to you and say, ‘i think that needs to be checked.’ and points something out. Do we get pissed? no. Because that is a part of this sport, watching out for our friends in the sky.
Recently I have been blessed enough to be allowed to be a part of an amazing group of women skydivers (and ground crew) and it’s not just the time in the sky that we support each other, it’s in our everyday life. We have each other programmed in our phones and we celebrate each others accomplishments and are saddened when the others are going through something. We support each other outside of the sport and because this group of women are so amazing, we have a group of awesome men that stand behind us and support us.
I guess there is something to be said about jumping out of planes, it just makes all the drama on the ground seem a little more manageable.
I’m sorry we lost one of our skyfamily. I do hope that the next time someone opens their mouth and says something as crass as ‘we deserve’ it, they choke on their saliva. Then someone can tell them, “That’s the risk you take when you breathe.”
Blue Skies.