Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Tandem Skydive goes Horribly Wrong!

...That's what the headlines say..it goes on to say that the instructor had a heart attack in mid air and 1st time jumper had to take over.....This happened this past Saturday in Columbia SC..just up the road from me..
Daniel Pharr (a 25 yr old who is stationed here at Ft Gordon GA) got a Christmas present from his girl...a free tandem skydive. The way the news story read all was going fine until after the jump...the instructor was even talking to the guy when all of a sudden it got quiet and Pharr looked at the instructor and knew something was wrong. So from watching TV he knew that he had to pull on the toggles to steer....anyway..he got them landed and tried to do CPR on the instructor but he died..but he landed safely without any injuries to himself.

So why does this catch my eye....Well for years I've wanted to Tandem Skydive...don't ask me why since I'm deathly afraid of heights...it's just something I want to do...I can just see me floating in the air with a guy strapped onto my back..hmmm...any ways...At my AOC Christmas party this year I won one of the raffle gifts..yep, you guessed it..1 FREE TANDEM SKYDIVE, which I plan on doing this spring...the group did it last year and loved it..I've been really excited about it..since I'll be going with this same group...
But now the question is....WHAT would I do if something happened to the instructor..(that guy strapped to my back)?...Would I panic? I truthfully don't know...I've talked to other people who have been injured (a broken ankle) while jumping but nothing serious so I haven't really worried about it..but now I will have this story in the back of my mind..which I don't think is good...But I am determined to go ahead and do it...

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