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• September 2008
• Fly

[audio:https://stephdavis.co/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/01-kryptonite-1.mp3]
Kryptonite “3 Doors Down”

A friend of mine says that skydiving is all about emotion. It serves no practical purpose. When an airplane hanger is quiet and empty, it’s as though nothing ever happened there. But in the height of a jumping day, the air is filled with energy and intensity. There is motion in every space of place and time. In the airplanes, in the landing areas, emotion is thick and tangible. People are lit up, buzzing with feeling–fear, joy, satisfaction, desire. It’s the same for every person at every drop zone, whether first-time tandem passenger, veteran fun jumper or pilot. I think this is why I find skydiving and BASE jumping and climbing to be so linked. They are children of the same parent.


A month ago at the Roan Plateau near Rifle, I did a slider-up, subterminal tracking jump off the highest point of the cliff, about 800 feet to impact.

As my body fell through the air in the first few seconds of freefall, I felt myself starting to move forward into flight as I neared terminal speed. My tracking suit just started to inflate with air at about five seconds. I felt perfect, and waited an extra second, watching the beige talus rush up to meet me, before snatching my pilot chute and throwing it out behind me. It was a perfect body flight. Somehow the short, subterminal track is even more intense than a full-on, terminal flight. Each fraction of the exit is magnified. Every second seems full and separate, stamped individually and crystal clear in my mind.

As soon as the parachute opened into flight, things changed. I felt a headwind pushing against me and slowing my forward drive, and suddenly realized I might not make it to the small landing area way down the steep ravine. I tried to make my body small by pulling my legs up to my chest, and pulled down on the back of the canopy, to give it a little extra loft against the wind. There aren’t many good alternative landing options in the gnarly, jagged terrain. Once I flew past the steep talus slope, I felt fairly committed, because the ravine gets even more complicated and rough, with no real place to put it down. I didn’t have much of a plan for if I couldn’t get to the small dirt patch we land in.

I made it through the headwind, and got over the small, rocky landing spot. The wind changed suddenly, into an upward swirl, and I was updrafted like a paraglider. In those seconds, I realized that choosing my less-familiar, back-up parachute for this jump was a really bad move. I needed to fly it really well at this point to bring it down safely, but I was suddenly aware that I didn’t know this parachute very well for extreme accuracy. I made instinctive maneuvers to bring myself down to the little clearing, the way I would fly my other canopy, but they weren’t working right with this parachute. With every turn and sink I made to lose altitude and stay on target, I was picking up speed that I couldn’t lose.

In the final seconds, I knew I was going to pound in to the sun-baked dirt. I consciously tried to relax my body, brake the parachute, and roll away from my spine as I slammed in flat on my right side. I lay on my back on the hard dirt, downhill on a slight slope, thinking, “I just broke my pelvis” as I heard my radio come on from Ted and Chris still at the exit point, two thousand feet up on the plateau. “Are you all right?!” I fumbled in my pocket for the radio, and answered, “I think I’m okay! Just give me a second!” I always get about twenty minutes after a hard hit, where the adrenaline masks the pain. So the fact that my whole body hurt really bad right now was not a good sign. I wanted to get to my feet, to prove to myself it wasn’t a spinal injury, though I know that’s the wrong thing to do. But I couldn’t bring myself to move yet. “Steph, are you all right” “I think I’m okay! Just give me a second!”

I struggled to my feet, and got dizzy and nauseous, right back down. But I could feel my legs and feet, and use them. I hadn’t hurt my spine. I felt like I had just won the BASE lottery. Ted and Chris jumped, and made it safely to me. For the next hour or so I laid on the ground, nursing the delusion I was going to hike out, thirty minutes of scrambling down the creek ravine, until I tried to stand again. I could stand, for about two seconds, until the pain in my lower back made me nauseous and I crumbled down. Chris and Ted disappeared for a private conference and came back with the not so shocking news that it was time to call a helicopter.

It was about three hours til the chopper came…..at the exact same moment I pounded in, a paraglider a little further down the plateau had been caught in the same strange wind and broke his back and leg. So they needed to get him first, because I was pretty sure I was fine, mostly. Ted and Chris helped me get on top of my parachute for padding, organized the rescue with a cell phone, and kept the sun off my face with a pilot chute. In the end, though Ted had a device that shot GPS coordinates, they had to flag the chopper in with a bright orange pilot chute, because we were so hard to pick out in the ravine. I was basically ecstatic to have the use of my legs, and so thankful to be with such solid partners. As much as it wasn’t the greatest situation, I felt amazingly lucky. Because I have done this jump alone in the past, which now seems like a really bad idea.

They sent me home from the hospital after three days with a staggering supply of narcotics, and the directions to “do as much as you can. Sacral fractures are extremely painful, but the more you do, the faster you’ll heal.” I saved the narcotics for future emergencies, and forced myself to graduate from walker to crutches to ski pole in a week. Everything hurt, a lot. But I was permanently ecstatic to not be more seriously injured, and was pretty much thrilled, no matter what. I knew I could have gotten really really hurt in that accident, and felt like I had been handed a gift from the universe with something so recoverable.

Since I could swim, gently, I decided to swim every day. After about a week and a half, I could drive to the gym and lift light weights and spin on a seated bike. Everything hurt, a lot. But I could do things, and I was thrilled. After three weeks, I was walking around and starting to climb on my wall. Another week later, I was running, though slowly, on trails. Exactly five weeks later, the bone doctor told me I was totally mended, and could skydive and BASE jump again. Seriously. I swear he said that. I was amazed.

The next day, two friends came through from California. Erin had always wanted to fly, and was hoping to do a skydive during their visit. I was still in shock from my doctor’s visit the day before, and started packing my BASE rig, which had been untouched for the last month. As we sat around talking, I noticed it was pretty windy outside, which makes for nice, soft skydiving landings. I still had a bunch of sore spots—elbow, ribs, a few inner thigh muscles. But I felt pretty good, and we decided to go out to the airport and do some jumps. If Erin and DK each went for a tandem jump on separate plane rides, there would be room in the Cessna for me too.

It was great to walk in to the hanger and see everyone on the packing carpet. “Are you ready for your triumphant return to skydiving?” said Andrew with a big smile and his cheery Australian accent.

“Well, it’s a return. We’ll see about the triumphant part later.”

I was very not quite sure I was ready, but that’s how it’s always going to feel when you get back in the saddle. The first jump was going to be really hard, mentally, but it had to be done. Mario, the regular jump pilot, asked our friend Nick to fly the plane, so he could fly his wingsuit with me….so I would have some company in the air 🙂

So strange, to be sitting in the plane, on the way up to altitude, and actually feeling nervous to skydive. I hadn’t felt like that since my first jump. Sometimes I get a little nervous before BASE jumping, but never before skydiving, so this felt really strange! I was watching my altimeter as we climbed to 10,000, partly not ready, and partly wishing we could get up there faster and just go….

The fear seemed really irrational, because skydiving is so safe, and the landing situation as friendly as it can get, with the winds to soften the landing. But the sensation of coming in toward the ground, after that last BASE landing had ended so badly, was destined to be pretty frightening on a deep, subconscious plane. I felt good in my wingsuit, sitting in the little Cessna with all my friends, like always. I felt really happy to be going into the air again. But pretty afraid. I sat, with my back to the cockpit watching Nick fly the plane, letting the emotions race around inside.

Erin and Andrew left the plane, falling through the air. I watched them go, and then climbed out onto the step as Nick slowed the plane a little so we could get set up for the wingsuit launch without being blown off. Opening my wings into the air, feeling my body shoot forward into flight, was amazing. It was so good to be flying! I missed it so much. But as soon as I threw out my pilot chute and came under the parachute, I had to work hard to control my nerves. As I flew through the sky, setting up for a landing pattern into the wind, I was tense and tentative. I carefully brought the parachute down, making a point to shoot accuracy next to the flag, focusing completely to land softly and upright.

I thought it was a little ridiculous to feel so afraid, landing my skydiving canopy in a giant flat field, with perfect soft wind to float me down like Tinkerbell….. But I guess it’s just an irrational, deep thing, after you have been seriously hurt, and everyone has to go through it. The mind is such a powerful thing. I was filled with emotion, and kind of hungry and drained from having had so much fear in my body. I stood by the flag and gathered up my parachute, shaking, glad to be back.