UTMC

Fellow terrorist, I've found myself in a very bad way.

After nearly 10 years of hucking myself from airplanes and more than 3,000 jumps, the inevitable injury has occurred.

Sunday afternoon, while parachuting into the little brother of my girlfriends, graduation party (they have 30 acres and sweet pond!) I fractured my ankle. Its not kind of broke either- its was dislocated past 90* and the surgery I get to have on Friday is calling for a plate and several screws. Right now I am laden with a friggen huge plaster cast up to my knee that feels like having a bowling ball strapped to my foot. Lots of Vicadin, though.

The injury itself isn’t all that terrible, shit happens. The suck of it all is the timing. It is peak skydiving season here in Michigan, and this means I’m going to miss the bulk of the season. This sucks both because its what I really like to do and financially as it is my second job. Hour for hour, I make much more money skydiving than I ever could working in the machine shop. I don’t get to go to the machine shop either. So no income.

Also, I was slotted to leave on a cross country-Michigan to California road trip in two weeks astride my trusty old Interceptor. This journey has been a year in the planning, near a month off of work to cleanse my soul with motorcycle goodness. I was looking forward to this, very-very-very much.

If anybody wants to post the x-ray, ill send it to them, its pretty gnarly.

Here’s some video to illustrate the type of parachute I jump and its potential.
<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/eQpsp1Lwf0A&hl ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/eQpsp1Lwf0A&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

Fuckin sucks man, look on the sunny side, though. I dated a girl whose brother was a jumpmaster, he had scads of jump videos and in every one of them he would point out numerous people who had died jumping. But I'm sure ou get tired of hearing people say that kind of shit to you, I know he did.

Anyway, the real shame of it is that everything on TV is a rerun in the summer so even on the couch there's nothing to do. Go buy an Xbox and some games.

Ouch!

Still, any skydiving accident that you can talk about later... well, it's sort've like motorcycling.

Heal up, man! It's been a rough year for the home team. Sheesh.

--Jaeger

Based on the subject line, and the first sentence, I assumed that you were in a bad fianancial way, and were now homeless.

If you were homeless, I would say, "at least you've got your health!"

Since you're not so healthy at the moment, I would like to point out, "at least you are not homeless!"

Heal up bro!

Rabbit_Fighter wrote:Based on the subject line, and the first sentence, I assumed that you were in a bad fianancial way, and were now homeless.

If you were homeless, I would say, "at least you've got your health!"

Since you're not so healthy at the moment, I would like to point out, "at least you are not homeless!"

Heal up bro!

+1

That sucks two bags of dirty, Ron Jeremy cock.
Again, I'm glad it's a skydiving accident you can bitch about, but still... That sucks.

Good luck on the healing process!

Bigshankhank wrote:Fuckin sucks man, look on the sunny side, though. I dated a girl whose brother was a jumpmaster, he had scads of jump videos and in every one of them he would point out numerous people who had died jumping. But I'm sure ou get tired of hearing people say that kind of shit to you, I know he did.

Anyway, the real shame of it is that everything on TV is a rerun in the summer so even on the couch there's nothing to do. Go buy an Xbox and some games.

Skydiving and off road or on track motorcycling are pretty much in the same bracket for safety. The fatality rate in skydiving continues to plummet and though i have known a couple who have "gone in", i've mostly seen injuries on par with what i've recently given myself. Maladies that every motorcross track has witnessed countless times.

I am of the opinion that riding a street bike is a much more lethal affair than jumping. With the advancement of training the typical skydiver undergoes and the rapid growth of quality and function of the gear, the margin of safety has gone way up. The road is a wide open and mostly unregulated territory that is lousy with poorly maintained vehicles and incompetent drivers. i ride street everyday and always feel safer in the air. That said, whether it be in the sky or on two wheels, i'm the biggest danger to me.

Thanx all for the well-wishes!

Wow, that looks insanely fun. I'd REALLY love to do that, but my jacked up lower back would be toast.

Heal quick!

OW! Ankle ouch bad! Get well man!
At least when you tell the story, you'll look dignified and rakish, rather than clumsy.

That totally sucks.
I sure hope everything heals up quickly and fully and you are back jumping out of planes and riding soon.

Glad you are well enough to tell us all about it!!

Never jumped, never really wanted too, but I did go up in a small plane once. A friend of mine from high school had recently gotten his license, and I figured, "He hasn't had time to forget what he's learned." . So we went for a ride.
I felt MUCH safer in the air with him than I did as a passenger in his car.

Heal well, do your PT, enjoy the meds.

I hope you heal quick and glad thats all it was but....

A month from a road trip and you jump out of a perfectly good airplane????

Just saying.............

(course I'm too chicken shit to do that so what do I know?)

You know those Orders From High Kommand about not crashing? They apply to skydiving, too, okay?

What those nice folks above me already said, +1.

At least you did it doing something you like to do.

Sucks being laid up, heal quickly!

flounder wrote:I hope you heal quick and glad thats all it was but....

A month from a road trip and you jump out of a perfectly good airplane????

Just saying.............

(course I'm too chicken shit to do that so what do I know?)

Perfectly good airplane? obviously you haven't inspected our aircraft.

check out my x-ray from before they compressed my dislocation (relocated?!)

holy mutha of gawd that look PAINFUL! Damn, not really a post I wanted to see first thing in the morning. Sorry bout the injury man. Time to catch up on that reading you've been lagging on and play some guitar. Heal up soon!

Hell that's a cringe-worthy image! Getting a good dose of sympathy pains after seeing that.

goose wrote:Time to catch up on that reading you've been lagging on and play some guitar.

A capital idea!

Rest up and heal well. You might even spend some of your time rescheduling your bike trip.

Fucking ouch!

Hope you feel better soon!

OWWWW

OWWW Damn! That made me squirm!

DAMN!!!

Easy to remember pain killer:

Codeine and likker

or likker and codeine

both ways work swimmingly


DAMN!!

Damn spaghetti leg!

Heal quick and PM me an address so I can get some crap to do over to you.

Deceleration trauma will get you every time.

Yeah, that xray made me cringe a bit.

Heal up quick man!

ouch. That X-ray image made my ankle hurt in solidarity. Ouch!

Friday's surgery, according to the doctor, went well. Unfortunately, i was unable to secure a digital copy of the post surgery x-ray. suffice it to say that a six inch plate was inserted into the back of my ankle, secured by six smallish screws. In addition, most of the ligaments in my ankle are totally trashed so two much longer bolts were driven through my fibula (the broken bone) into my tibia as to make a sort of ligament sandwich.

Post surgery was a debacle. Immediately after i woke up in post-op, the nurse shot me full of fentanyl and sent me on my way home. Half way back to the homestead, it started to hurt something fierce. Within an hour i was writhing in agony, unable to see or comprehend. After 3 hours and in the face of ingesting 3 times the recomended dosage of Vicadin ES with little to no relief, the surgeon was contacted and he advised i go to the ER.

The only proclamation from that evening that i can clearly and concisely make is: Dilaudid ( a synthetic and powferful narcotiic several more time effective than morphine) is an amazing tool for pain management.

Though it still kinda hurts like a motherfucker, my mobility has improved exponentially over the last 2 days. The combination of a lighter, better fitting cast and some advanced training in the art of crutch-foo has gone a long way.




On a related note, one of the incredible things about skydiving is all the cameras that are constantly around. Luckily for us, there is documentation of my season ending swoop!

Here i am, draggin a toe through the pond (like a pimp.)
<a href="http://s891.photobucket.com/albums/ac11 ... G_6854.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i891.photobucket.com/albums/ac11 ... G_6854.jpg" border="0" alt="a second before impact"></a>

This is half a second later, tryin to fly up hill.
<a href="http://s891.photobucket.com/albums/ac11 ... G_6855.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i891.photobucket.com/albums/ac11 ... G_6855.jpg" border="0" alt="point of impact"></a>

Lets take a little closer look at that one, notice you can see the back of my left foot.
<a href="http://s891.photobucket.com/albums/ac11 ... =close.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i891.photobucket.com/albums/ac11 ... /close.jpg" border="0" alt="closer"></a>

The old adage rings true - if your gonna be dumb, you've gotta be tough.

The look on your face says "OUCH!" in a very timeless way.

I also find it sort of funny that jumping OUT OF THE SKY requires less safety gear than riding a motorcycle. I know it makes perfect sense, but still.

oh damn.

yikes - hopefully you'll heal back to normal!!...whatever normal is

Fickedy fuckin' Owwwww!!!

I climbed over the back of my chair when I saw that. *twitch*

WeAintFoundShit wrote:The look on your face says "OUCH!" in a very timeless way.

I also find it sort of funny that jumping OUT OF THE SKY requires less safety gear than riding a motorcycle. I know it makes perfect sense, but still.

In freefall, armor would hinder your ability to fly your body, no question.

BUT!

For swooping, or as its officially deemed-canopy piloting; it makes perfect sense to wear a bunch of protective gear. i mean, you are intentionally pointing yourself at the ground and then pulling up at the last moment. that shit goes wrong all the time (obviously).

When organizers of canopy piloting approached the TV people about some coverage of their fledgling sport the television people said, "we cant show that shit to kids. these guys are going faster than motorcrossers and wear no safety gear!!"

Skydivers are like that, though. Most of them are kinda squid-like, especially the older ones. many won't even wear helmets, only leather hats. Sorta like an antique football helmet.

Yeah, but as far as I know it's kinda hard to wheelie parachute through somebody's neighborhood.

Oh wait, I actually have no idea what I'm talking about. I just had to make that wise crack.