borderline insanity

Last weekend I had a chance to experience one of my favorite things in life. Most that know me, know that I am an adrenaline junkie. Anything that gets the heart pumping and blood flowing, I would probably try it w/out much hesitation. Most of the injuries I've sustained in life have been the result of pushing the limits just a bit too hard, typically involving wheels of some sort. However, there are some injuries and accidents that you won't recover from. Plummeting to the ground from 3,500 feet is one of them. Regardless, when one of my buddies approached me and asked if I wanted to go skydiving for his birthday, I gave an exclamatory, "YES!" w/out thought or hesitation.

I've had the great pleasure of skydiving once before, for my birthday ironically, five years ago. I sat through the class and had the most incredible first jump. I was so invigorated, that I decided to jump again that day and thereafter experienced my first malfunction. It was line-twist, a very common and easily fixable problem, but still helped me become a more educated skydiver. This education proved invaluable for our experience that is still surprisingly vivid in my mind today.

After staying out late the night before celebrating, I woke up in a panic on Buscher and Yigas' couch, just 15 minutes before we were supposed to start class at 8:00 in the morning. Mind you, Butler, MO is over an hour away. So, we gather everyone up, make a few quick phone calls to plead our way into the class, and arrive an hour and a half late. We sit through the remainder of the class and make up our missed curriculum over the lunch break. After hours of training and contingency planning, we are finally given the green light to suit up for our jump. I stepped into the leg harnesses and slid the heavy pack up my legs to rest on my back. I strapped everything down as tight as I comfortably could and checked my altimeter. I slipped my helmet on, took a few last photos and reassured my buddies as we made our way down the runway to board the perfectly functional cessna we were about to jump out of.

As we had practiced, Yigas climbed in first and crawled to the back of the plane to buckle in. I followed behind and took my position just behind the pilot. Buscher was the last to board and buckled in next to the door that we were about to jump out of. The pilot taxied our plane down the runway, we took a sharp left and immediately accelerated to take off. The point where I can no longer tell how fast I'm going is such a rush for me! We slowly climbed to 3500 feet as we circled the tiny Butler airport. Our jump master finally signaled that he was opening the door and he slammed it open into the rushing air. The fuselage of the airplane filled with swirling wind and the roar of the engine became brutally apparent. My mind wouldn't let go of the comment one of the other jump masters made earlier in the day... that he knew what a dead skydiver looked like. I knew everything would be just fine, as it was the prior two times I had jumped, but he certainly caught my attention w/ that comment.

Buscher was the first to jump. He carefully situated himself just inside the open door and very purposely grabbed for the wing support he was to hang from before his decent back to earth. Instead of firmly gripping the support with both hands, he wrapped his left arm around the support in a kind of bear hug that made it impossible to inch any further towards the end of the wing. To our intructor's surprise, Buscher simply jumped off the platform and twisted around before his chute deployed. The instructor's humored and relaxed reaction helped settle my nervous. Now it was my turn...

I inched to the edge of the fueselage and firmly grabbed hold of the support. I pulled my body out into the rushing wind and the incredible roar of the propellor ripping through the air drowned out everything, including my own thoughts and the countless hours of training I had been through. I inched my way towards the end of the support, looked back at the instructor and got the go-ahead to jump. This was it!

I released my white-knuckled grip and immediately threw my arms up and arched my back. It was a near textbook release and my devilish grin showed I knew it. I sailed through the air and my chute eventually caught air, ripping my body upright again. The paper-thin nylon above my head was the only thing keeping me from plummeting to the ground and I was comforted to see everything was in working order. I immediately grabbed hold of my right toggle and yanked down as hard and far as I could and just held it. The chute responded, sending me spiraling down towards the ground. I was spinning at such a high speed, the centripetal force pushed my body so far to the side that I was looking straight into the ground and the line from the chute to my body was nearly parallel to the ground. The devilish grin remained.

I released the toggle and began a peaceful and serene coast through the calm summer air. Below my feet I could see miles and miles of farmed ground and ponds. In the distance, I could faintly make out the long runway connected to the tiny Butler airport and set my course in that direction. After a few, seemingly long, minutes I made my final turn and prepared to land in the grass field just beside the hanger. I flared the chute by pulling down on both toggles as hard as I could at the last second and skidded to a stop safely on earth again. I couldn't help but let out a loud WHOOP and looked up at Yigas, still above me. I had heard a scuffle over the radio as I was falling through the air and knew there was something out of the ordinary w/ Nic's jump. Everything now seemed in order, so I didn't think twice about it.

Once the entire group was safely back on the ground and everyone had shared their stories and excitement, we gathered in the classroom for one final lesson. Our instuctor individually praised or criticized everyone in the group. The two hooligans I jumped w/ received the brunt of the criticism of the entire group. It wasn't until I developed the pictures taken from the camera mounted on the edge of the wing that I realized just how warranted that criticism was for Yigas. Later that night, I'm standing in front of the photo desk at Walgreens, flipping through the pictures taken during our adventure. I saw Buscher twisting through the air, but still allowing a safe chute deployment. I also saw my near textbook jump... if only I would have looked up higher so that the camera would have caught the grin that possessed my face as I sailed through the air. And then I saw Yigas... flipping upsidedown, through his risers, BARELY missing getting his arm tangled in the lines as his chute deployed. I immediately called Nic and we naively laughed about his ordeal.

If Yigas could do everything so horribly wrong and have only a nervous laugh and funny story to show for it, we would all be able to do it again- safely, that is. This adrenaline rush is incredibly addicting. So much so that we are all planning a follow-up tour in a few months for Buscher's birthday. Just a few more jumps before I can cross the number one item off my bucket list... freefall!