I Got Into A Traumatic Skydiving Accident. This is What Happened.
Last week, I manifested for the first load at Skydive Moab. I geared up and boarded the plane, as as it rose through the sky, I envisioned a successful dive flow with fellow jumpers and friends. I’d exit the plane, start tracking, pull my pilot chute at altitude, and land my canopy. After landing, I’d likely go in and repack my rig, board the plane, and jump again.
My vision wasn’t quite accurate. After deploying my main parachute, I was sent into a dizzy spin. It was my first serious parachute malfunction, but we’d trained for this in skydiving school. I pulled my cutaway handle and swiped its attached cord. This motion was to release the malfunctioning parachute and deploy my reserve. Pull and swipe, pull and swipe.
But after completing the motion, I looked up at my parachute, and only half of it was disconnected. The other half of the defunct parachute clung to the shoulder of my rig and pulled my body haphazardly through the air. The reserve parachute still deployed as expected, but now the two parachutes acted chaotically as if in combat, sending me into a high-speed downward spiral toward the ground. I tried to find the flaw of the rig, or of my actions. What is happening? I looked for my handles, but they were gone. Am I going to die? I tried to calm the parachutes somehow, but their force was immense. What did I do wrong? My mind, and my hands, raced. But before I knew it, I hit the ground…
I lay in the desert dirt sporadically yelling for a few moments in solitude. Soon, I was surrounded by concerned skydivers, followed by a team of medics who gently rolled my body onto a stretcher. I’d never been in an ambulance before. “We’re going to give you something, it might make you feel trippy.” My mind and body floated away from me as ketamine infiltrated my blood.
We arrived at the local hospital where I found out my back was severely fractured. “Your L1 and L2 are shattered,” the doctor said. I pictured my bones in dozens of pieces. I was told their staff wasn’t equipped for the surgery I’d need.
“You’re going to need a medical evacuation to the Salt Lake hospital.”
“What? I can’t afford to fly. Can’t I just drive?”
“No. You’re running the risk of becoming paralyzed the longer we wait.”
I boarded a plane for the second time that day, but not for the reason I’d planned when I woke up.
We all know life can change any moment. It’s something we’re all aware of, but don’t necessarily appreciate the severity of. I’m so unbelievably grateful to be able to walk, to be alive, to have parents who welcome me back to their house while I recover. I can’t quite grasp how drastically different my life could be right now if I had landed in a slightly different way.
I could have easily been paralyzed.
I could have died.
I later found out that my parachute remained partially attached because I hadn’t swiped the cord all the way through when I pulled my cutaway handle.
How many times I have revisited that moment and wished I could have swiped a little further. But how many times, too, that I have revisited the moment my body hit the ground, and thanked the earth for catching me in such a way that my life will eventually be able to resume in a somewhat familiar way.
