Falling

There’s something frenetic and exciting about being in a hangar or on the flight line. A strange and intoxicating energy that’s hard to replicate. Airplanes buzz around in the background, men and women rush around with great purpose and sure steps. Everything has a place, everyone has a job, and problems are solved with urgency and ruthless efficiency. Everything on a flight line has to work, otherwise the planes don’t fly.

Nervous, fidgety, and flight suited, I stand to the side of the organized melee of the hangar. I’d gotten into Queenstown, New Zealand, the night before, and had made the snap decision to jump out of an airplane the next day. Today.

Today is the day I fall from fifteen thousand feet and survive.

A short, flight suited man approaches me. “Are you Doug?” His heavy Eastern European accent changes my name to “Daugh”.

“That’s me.”

“I’m Yuri! Nice to meet you. You’re jumping solo today right?”

“Uhhhh…”

Yuri puts his hand out and stops me. “Just kidding. I’m your jumpmaster! Let’s get you checked out!” He starts fiddling with the harness strapped over my flight suit. “Hmm… this is bad…” he looks up with a grin.

I shake my head, smile breaking past my nerves. I am scared out of my mind, and I’m sure Yuri can tell.

“It’s okay. I do this a lot.”

“How many jumps do you have?” I’m just curious. I knew that the company Yuri worked for required people to have three thousand jumps before they could even apply for a job. Yuri is without a doubt one of the best jumpers in the world.

“I have jumped over ten thousand times.”

“Wow. That’s insane.”

Yuri laughs. “You must be insane or brave to jump out of airplane. You are insane yes?”

“I’m certainly not brave.” We laugh some more.

“Okay. Now to serious stuff.” Yuri runs down the different positions he wants me to assume before we jump out of the plane, once we’re in the air, and as we’re approaching the ground. I take this very seriously. Next he checks all my equipment again. While he’s doing that, I’m introduced to another guy who’s going to be jumping with us, Chris.

Chris is the camera guy. All NZONE skydivers go up in teams of three: the Jumpmaster, the cameraman, and the new guy. This is so you can get awesome photos to show your friends, and is also another way for NZONE to make more money. Chris shows me how all his equipment works, and then describes the jump process to me.

“So we’re punching out at fifteen thousand feet. That gives you roughly sixty seconds of free fall. I’ll be taking pictures and video with these,” he indicates a head mounted setup. “Be sure to tuck your head up and look around, not only does it make for the best pictures, but it also will help you breathe better and it’ll help you enjoy the view.”

“Okay.” I try to ignore ‘breathe better’ and focus on the ‘view’ portion of that statement.

After the brief we join a group of other teams headed for a small aircraft on the grass runway. As we climb aboard and find places, literally sitting in each other’s laps, I realize that this is my last chance to get out without falling out. Once we were in the air the only way down would be out the rear hatch and into empty space.

I stuff my fear deep inside me and get settled as Yuri straps me to him using a system of clips and carabineers. The pilot taxies and suddenly we are airborne.

It is not a silent flight up. The jumpmasters crack jokes with each other. Trade gossip. I observe it all, hearing without understanding. Occasionally I glance out the window at the ground getting further and further away. Fear gnaws its way into my bones and settles in the marrow, keeping my breathing light and my head dizzy. I want to take a hit off one of the oxygen tubes that are hanging from the roof of the aircraft, but resist. I recite the prayer against fear in my head.

I must not fear. Fear is the mindkiller. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will let it pass over and through me. When the fear has passed I will turn my inner eye to see the path that it has taken. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Two teams punch out at nine thousand feet. I watch, shoving my fear back inside me, as they disappear out the roll top door at the rear of the aircraft and are just GONE.

That’s me in two minutes.

Yuri taps me on the shoulder. I lean my head back and he yells in my ear above the roar of the Cessna’s engine: “You ok?” His Hungarian accent makes it sound like “Yoo ovay?”

I can’t talk. I make a thumbs up and nod. Yuri pats me on the shoulder again.

The Cessna climbs higher. Suddenly, shockingly, it’s time. “Scoot forward!” Yuri yells. I comply, despite the fact that we’re mutually scooting towards empty space. My mind is screaming at me, demanding a return to the sane world where we don’t jump out of an airplane at fifteen thousand feet, but the lizard brain knows what to do. The deepest darkest place in me wants to jump, and so we will.

Chris is waiting for us at the edge of the plane. I barely register that he’s hanging on with one hand and one foot, trying to get the best photos he can. My waking brain sees the ground below, the air around, and it simply cannot handle it. Rational thought shuts down. It’s still there, screaming in incoherent terror, but the lizard has taken over. We’re jumping.

I’m down to my base emotions. Mindless, paralyzing terror fills every nook and cranny in the sane portion of my brain. I’m shocked I didn’t freeze, call out or demand to be returned to safety. But I didn’t. I remained.

 

I didn’t hear Yuri count down. We were in the aircraft and then suddenly we weren’t.

The air is sucked out of my body. We spin wildly, the ground, the sky, the ground. The lizard reminds the muscles that there’s a position we’re supposed to be in, and my hands and feet move of their own accord. Rational thought has stopped screaming, shocked into silence at the fact that we’re actually falling.

Yuri stabilizes us and I’m looking at ground again. “My God!”

It seems as if the whole of New Zealand is stretched out beneath me. We are higher than the tallest mountain in the area. The view is incredible, I can see for hundreds of kilometers. There is a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, the tiny village of Queenstown surrounded by farms, sky above, earth below.

We fall.

Chris zooms up, somehow controlling his fall. He starts snapping photos. This brings reality crashing in. Fear surges back into my senses and I fight to keep control of my body. I manage a weak smile for the cameras. The wind rushes in my face and ears. It buffets me, slips underneath the goggles and forces me to narrow my eyes. Pressure thumps in my ears and my nose starts to run. I try to breathe, but the air is coming too fast.

As I look at the view, I realize it’s not the falling that I’m afraid of. I’m afraid of not being in control. Yuri, confident, competent, Yuri, with all ten thousand of his jumps, cannot assuage my nervousness about not being in charge of my own fate.

We become level with the tallest peaks, and then move below. Chris nods to Yuri and I and closes his arms and legs, dropping like a stone. He’s got to get down much faster than we do, because he’s supposed to take pictures at the bottom. I try to watch him, but he’s gone.

Yuri lets us fall for five seconds more before pulling the chute.

Gravity kicks back in. With a sudden, horrifying jerk, we rapidly decelerate and I am hanging from Yuri by the harness. This is all according to plan, but doesn’t make it any better. Yuri fiddles with the chute for a second then checks with me. “You okay?”

“Yeah!” I am okay. I’m dangling hundreds of feet in the air from a large piece of silk and a man smaller than I am. But I’m okay. In fact. I’m fantastic. “This is amazing!” It is. I’ve never been more afraid, excited, and awestruck. It’s a completely indescribable rush.

“Welcome to my office!” Yuri laughs, as we bank over Queenstown.

After perhaps thirty seconds, he offers me the control toggles. I gingerly take them, and try to turn. We turn too fast and I overcompensate in the other direction. Yuri, calm, utterly collected, mutters instructions in my ear. We level out.

Yuri asks for the controls back as the ground gets uncomfortably closer. The fear is back, but I’m ready for it this time, finally. We approach at what seems like unreasonable speed, but Yuri is in total command, flaring us out at the last second so that we slide to a gentle stop on the green, beautiful grass.

My nose runs, my ears pop and my adrenal glands have shorted out. I want to cry and laugh and breathe and everything feels so real. I lie on my back for a second and stare into the ice blue sky with only on thought in my head.

“When can I do this again?”

-Doug