We were young. We were stupid. And no doubt alcohol factored into our collective decision to try parachuting.
Without further reflection, my college roommates and I found ourselves in the dead of a Canadian winter at a training centre for first-time jumpers. There we learned how to arch our backs as we fell from the rafters on to the hay below. We learned how to keep our knees and feet together as we landed. We learned how to hit the ground and roll. Most important – and this was drilled into us – we were instructed never to look downward as we landed.
Then we suited up: jumpsuits, helmets, goggles. We hoisted the packed parachutes on to our backs and strapped in. A one-way radio was clipped to the reserve chute on our chest so we could hear instructions from the ground crew.
We headed outside to the waiting airplane. It was at this precise moment that I got scared. Only then did it occur to me this might be a potentially fatal thing to do. But no turning back now, not with all my roommates there. Young. Stupid.
They stacked us in order inside the tiny airplane. I was Jumper 4. They clipped the top of our chutes to the static line and rolled down the runway. The plane lumbered into the air. The jump master yelled to each of us above the noise and the wind – remember: knees together, feet together, don’t look down when we land. We reached altitude and the plane began to circle over the landing zone.
The jump master positioned one jumper at a time at the open door. They sat on the edge with legs dangling outside. Then she yelled, “One, Two, Three…Go!” At which point the jumper would propel themselves from the plane care of clenched butt cheeks. As they exited, a wing-tip camera took their photo. The chutes pulled open as the jumpers fell away from the plane. Then it was my turn.
I remember this moment with utter clarity. It is perhaps the most frightened I have ever been in my life. But before I knew it I was clenching my butt cheeks, then falling through space while screaming bloody murder. The wingtip camera shows me white as a ghost.
Then….poof. The chute opened. It was glorious. Floating above the wintry Ontario countryside, it looked like a toy train landscape with snow on the tiny buildings and fence posts. Complete silence except for the gentle wind. Peace. Relief. After a few minutes my radio crackled.
“Jumper 4 prepare to land. Remember: knees together, feet together, don’t look down”. What were they talking about? I was still miles from the ground. So I looked down.
BLAM. I hit the ground like a sack of concrete. Because I was looking down, my body folded in half so hard that my teeth sliced the knees of my flight suit open. I crumpled to the ground, barely able to breathe. Then my chute filled with a gust of wind. My helmeted head clattered along the ground as the full chute propelled me across the frozen farm field on my back. Finally I stopped care of a fence.
“Jumper 4”, crackled my radio. “That looked really painful. Give us a thumbs up if you are still alive”.