Here, at Dwains request, a story from the 80's copied from this year's archives and posted here.

Enjoy and learn - G.

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1988 - Sydney CBD - 39th(roof) floor of bldg. under construction - 3:00 am Friday 13th with 3 of us about to exit from N/W corner.
We're all using direct-bag deployment at the time with safety bridle running from bag to attachment point on bldg. (it's the olden-day's ya' know).

1st jumper off and lands next to a taxi who converses with Jumper. Call from a panicky assistant up top "He's gonna radio the cops - quick - go!go!go!"

This is my second base jump and have put all my trust and faith into my Mentor/bag-holder-dude!

"Am I right to go????"

"Yeah mate - go!"

.....and so I exit......

But alas my bridle cord was no longer running clean from bag to bldg. It was mis-routed around my harness so that when I jumped, it broke and ripped the bag from ####'s hands.

I have a clear memory of the intense tug that resulted and the view from being spun 180 and now facing the corner of the bldg. now in free fall with lines floating in front of my face leading to a locked bag with about three stowes left intact and a broken bridle-cord wavering pilotchuteless in the ever increasing airflow.

How did I live???? Pure luck. The bridle-cord broke at a critical time where I was in a slow swing-back trajectory toward the bldg. and pure luck of physics put me on the only possible path to the only section of the bldg. on the 36th floor that had not had windows put in yet! In fact the 36th, 35th and 34th floors themselves internally did not exist and so I was lucky that I just managed to stop myself on the edge before plummetting an additional 40 odd foot inside.

And I hit hard - taking the impact with the full force of my chest and front of my helmet. It winded me big-time and hurt like hell but I knew I was in a bad way but had stopped falling and could wait for as long as it took to get me down. I just knew I had to remain conscious.

So there I was - spread-eagled across this tiny ledge until my mates managed to rig some ropes and steel cable down to me so they could lower me to the 33rd floor where I subsequently took the stairs down and bought a lottery ticket.

You could never repeat this experiment.

The bridle was mis-routed by me on the way up the stairs whilst frigging around trying to silence the noisy Carribeena hardware as well as that from my B12 snaps. It was never checked.

Lessons learnt:

* Trust no-one. Blame no-one. Learn everything you can for yourself. Know it all and know that you will never know it all.

* Now - with all that knowledge, check your gear!

* Bring a small torch along for night jumps.

* Don't bring whuffo's along.

* Mis-routing your bridle is hazardous to your health.

* Friday 13th can be your luckiest day or it can be your unluckiest day - depends on how you look at it.

* Know that life is too great a gift to lose on a BASE jump.

It took 3 years before I did anymore BASE. I now approach it with some years of wisdom and great respect for life and how stupid us humans are sometimes. Especially me! If I always recognise that I'm a stupid careless idiot at times then I'll be more on guard and careful the next time this stupid careless idiot jumps.


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And as a post-script to all this..... I just want to say that since this incident I really got in touch with why it is that I want to jump. I really got in touch with the part of me that wanted to show off or prove something to myself and others. To get THAT BASE NUMBER. I also got in touch with the part of myself that just had a calling to huge monolithic man-made structures and the awesome beauty it is to BASE. The "structural relationship" as I call it with object and myself and the awesome privelige that this all is. My choice to still jump (ultra conservative mind you!) is made through not NEED but only WANT. I hope that this doesn't sound to alien to some but it's just the way it is for me.

Thanks - G.