Man, I don’t really know how to start so I’m just going to start dumping thoughts and edit later. (Note: I did not really edit this. It’s a meandering jumble so read at your own risk.)
Last week, my group chats and my social media all have been bubbling with conversation about lines. And Fluid wings. And gear maintenance. And the sad, shitty feeling of something horrible and preventable happening to someone in the sport; because at this point, most of the skydiving world has heard about the heartbreaking incident in Dubai. And in the online world we live in, people post things and they echo. There’s always stupid hot takes, and shitty takes, and earnest takes, and probably some annoying dude “just asking questions” or “playing devil’s advocate”. There’s reaction on reaction on reaction. I don’t mean for this to be one of those. This is just a thoughts and feelings dump for me.
I think about people dying quite a bit. I think about the relative danger of skydiving, vs driving on the highway, vs BASE jumping, vs riding a motorcycle, vs a zillion other things that range from mundane (“is it likely I’ll get hit by a car on my run today?”) to catastrophic (“will me or one of my friends do something stupid under canopy and smash in?”, “will someone I love have a stroke?”). I try not to dwell on it but it pops into my head a lot.
A couple years ago, I forced myself to really have a reckoning with the possibility of death in the sport, not for myself but for Mr. Richo Butts. I’ve always known skydiving has inherent risk, but up until a few years ago, I didn’t think about it that much. But this is the 2nd go-round of Señor Butts and I dating, and before I jumped back in the 2nd time, I sat down and had a very serious think. When we first dated, he had just started BASE jumping. At the time, my poor little 75-jump brain couldn’t handle it; I couldn’t handle the emotions. I couldn’t handle the fear that stemmed mostly from a total lack of understanding about relative risk in the sport. It rattled me too much that someone I cared about had started throwing them selves off of objects. I was so new to skydiving, so new to all of it, that in my mind BASE jumping = death, and I preferred having an alive boyfriend. So we broke up. And before we got together again, I had to really sit and think about how I felt about that, about the fact that my boyfriend has a penchant for dangerous activities.
But this time around, I’m older. This April marks a decade in skydiving for me and I know so much more than I did then. I have grown up, and grown away from my black and white thinking about danger and risk. I now know a lot of people who BASE jump fairly safely. I also now stomach the fact that my boyfriend has added a slew of other highly dangerous activities to his repertoire: he (still) rides motorcycles, he (still) BASE jumps, he swoops, he competes in rally car racing and flying acrobatic airplanes. So I think about the possibility of him dying a lot. It’s fairly common for someone to die or get injured at events he goes to, or participating in activities that he does. People smash in hard while swooping. People hit trees and roll their rally cars. (He tells me it’s not that dangerous but nearly every rally race, I get at least one text along the lines of “Someone did a whoopsie, but we’re okay.”). People crash small, fast, experimental airplanes. People push through heat, and hypoxia, and all sorts of shit doing these dangerous activities and some of them die. I spend a lot of time hoping it’s not him.
Frequently when we’re just hanging out, Richo and I have pretty engaging conversations about risk. And gear. And safety. He’s a software security person by trade, and he thinks in terms of threat models, and acceptable risk. He used to race motorcycles and brings risk-theory from that to our chats. He’s also a rigger, so he stays up-to-date with gear information and bulletins and incident reports. Thus, we talk about skydiving incidents and gear malfunctions and all that fairly often. We both have a vested interest in the sports we participate in getting safer, getting better. We both really want our friends and fellow skydivers to stay safe, so we talk about safety at the dropzone a lot while at home too.
I guess my point with all of that is that I don’t take the possibility of death in the sport lightly for myself, my favorite person, or any of my other friends. I’ve sat with those thoughts and worries a lot.
So, when I started writing this on a Friday, I was thinking about the lines on my Gangster. They’re ready to be replaced. I’m not doing big turns, just 90s, so I’m riding out one more weekend on them, then they go to Pete for a reline.
Saturday, when I showed up at the DZ, someone asked me about whether I’m stressed out about quality issues from Fluid. In fact, no. I am not stressed about my Fluid lines. I am not stressed out about my Fluid wing. Nor am I worried about my new Gangster coming in the mail either (in fact, I am super stoked).
I am an ambassador for Fluid, and they are one of my very favorite sponsorships. Before I moved to Fluid, I dragged my feet buying a Gangster. I demo’d a couple Gangsters almost an entire year before buying one. Mostly because I build up the effort of changing wings to feel daunting, because I really hate selling my old wings. But that gave me plenty of time to get to know Scott and Kevin and Kolla and a bunch of other peeps that work at Fluid and are sponsored by Fluid. I got to see firsthand how passionate everyone at Fluid is about their canopies and how knowledgeable they are. I’ve been lucky enough to build a lot of trust in the people at Fluid before I even started flying their canopies. I believe in the company and the people and I trust them to do the right thing. I really appreciate the videos they’ve put out so far with situation updates and the reminders about gear maintenance. I have no problem continuing to put my life in their hands because I trust them.
Gear maintenance has been haunting my brain too. Gear maintenance and complacency and safety. We had Safety Day a few weekends ago at Skydive California and, while it was targeted at our newest jumpers, the people who mostly showed up for the talks and discussions were experienced. First, I’m happy to see experienced skydivers being engaged because I think they’re at the biggest risk for being complacent. Second, I was sad to see the baby birds didn’t show, because they’re at the biggest risk for being new, know-nothings that will make dangerous mistakes out of ignorance and lack of experience. It frustrates me that one prominent avenue for education, Safety Day, was blown off by newer jumpers, because it’s a great time and place for discussions about gear maintenance.
I started out super cavalier about my gear. I bought a whole ancient setup for like $1700 dollars in 2016, and pretty much every gear upgrade after that has been an upgrade in safety for me. I started with an old reserve (Raven) and now I have PDRs. I definitely jumped some ragged out gear for a while, but I really like my current setup, for fit and newness and safety features. I definitely used to be in the “ballin’ on a budget” stage but I am happy to say I’ve been able to grow out of that; these days I’m happy to shell out for safety and quality.
For the longest time, I’ve been so conservative about canopy progression that I didn’t worry much about lines; I assumed that if I blew a line, it would happen on opening. I’ve done a lot of training in Perris, and Eloy, and dry Colorado where the dirt takes a toll on your gear so I should have been more vigilant. I’ve been very lucky. I also am probably a prime candidate for complacency because I’ve been progressing so slowly. I still have to shake the mindset that I’m on “a big canopy”. I fly a 96. That’s big compared to most of my friends, but it’s not big. I used to count on my big canopy having big durable lines that won’t snap easily. My brain still operates under the assumption that I’m doing fairly safe landing patterns and it’s unlikely for me to get hurt. But I need to shake that mental complacency. Even though I’m now only doing 90s with a little bit of induced speed (and I want to start doing 270s), now I’m questioning what I don’t know, or what I should be (but aren’t) doing, because I’ve eased my toes into this so slowly that someone assumes I already know some important info.
I also find myself not wanting to fall down a worry-hole about gear either because I’ve seen that happen. I had an ex that spent an entire day laying on the floor, catatonic with worry about a “gear incident”. His pilot chute momentarily touched an old oil stain on the concrete of the packing hangar. To be clear, it didn’t touch oil, or other chemicals. The stain was old and the oil had been removed and the concrete scrubbed. I tried reason, pointing out that he could (and should) visibly inspect his pilot chute every pack job, so he could see if it was starting to show any signs of chemical wear. I pointed out that he could just simply buy a whole new one, if he was panicked. I tried the logic of saying that the possibility of a complete and catastrophic failure of a pilot chute, like it just deploying into pieces of confetti, was entirely unlikely and the worst that would probably happen is slower extractions. None of my reasoning really worked, and gear fear won, so he laid on the floor for many more hours in a panicked stupor. I don’t ever want to fall down that kind of a rabbit hole.
All this is say that I don’t have a real conclusion for this blog. I’m just stewing about gear and safety and risk and dangerous sports. I’m thinking about the information Fluid is putting out to keep us apprised of the situation, their investigation, and their reminders about gear maintenance. I’m glad that I’m a Fluid tambassador and I’m glad I have another Gangster coming my way. I’m glad to have a relationship with a company that does put as much thought into their product as Richo does into risk. I’m sad that this is the wake-up call to so many of us to update our lines, to be realistic about how long a lineset lasts when you jump it hard in dry, dirty places. This is just one more time for me to get on the carousel that spins be in between “Am I worried enough?”, “Am I worried too much?”, “Am I even worrying about the right things?”
In the Baz Luhrmann song, “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)”, he says:
“Don’t worry about the future
Or worry, but know that worrying
Is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing Bubble gum
The real troubles in your life
Are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind
The kind that blindsides you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday”
I think about that a lot. I hope that I’m worrying and considering the right risks in a dangerous sport, doing the maintenance that matters. I hope I’m not wasting time catatonic on the floor worrying about a gear-fear that isn’t worth the time. I also hope that all my friends do their gear maintenance and take the risks of the sport we love seriously. Stay safe out there.