One of the not-so-fun things about skydiving is the injuries. We normally have about three or four injuries a year that require a trip to the hospital. I would say most of them go about this time of year, and this phenomenon is caused by strong and gusty winds.

Other than Steve's kidney stones, we have had two nasty injuries allready this year because of these conditions. I should explain: it's more than gusty winds that hurt these people. When people get hurt or killed in skydiving, it's not usually because of one mistake. It's a series of mistakes that usually gets them in trouble. One injury was a crushed heel. And I do mean crushed! We were oohing and aaahing over the pictures of poor Rhonda's CAT-scan because her heel looked like a jigsaw puzzle. She also dislocated her hip.

What happened? First she does not have a lot of jumps and she didn't pay attention to what the winds were doing before she got on the plane (mistake #1). She got close to the runway when trying to get back to the drop zone (mistake #2), panicked, (mistake #3), and did not flare her canopy and came down hard on the asphalt (mistake #4). She wants to jump again, and most likely will. I'm sure she will be more vigilant about the weather conditions.

The other skydiver, also an inexperienced woman, made the same mistake #1 as Rhonda did by not being aware of what was happening before she entered the aircraft. Alecia too got too close to the runway and panicked (#2 and #3), turned downwind to get away from the tarmac (#4) and did not flare (#5) when she landed against the side of the hill. Oh yeah: neither of these women did a Parachute Landing Fall (a procedure we teach people to minimize injuries if the landing is hard). Alecia fractured a femur.

Panicking, or freezing up, when you are in marginal conditions and you HAVE to do your best is what hurt them the most, I think. I made the same exact mistake they made once. I was too frickin' busy trying to get myself down in one piece to panic. Could this be a training issue? I think so. I had a busy checklist of things I was doing, like not worrying about making it back to the airport but more importantly finding a big-assed soft FIELD that I could land in. I sure as hell flared and PLF'd. I now wonder if they had a plan, or maybe they thought they couldn't handle it and just let it happen.

I hope this doesn't sound too sanctimonious: I tend to not jump in marginal conditions, and I'm always gratified when skydivers, especially male skydivers, come up to me and ask me my opinion on the conditions. I'm really gratified when they listen to me. If the wind conditions might be okay, I tell the inexperienced ones to watch at least one load coming down and pay attention to how hard the skydivers are working their canopies. In gusty winds the parachutes sometimes look like they're doing the hula and that's a really good indicator to go sit on your rig until the winds die down.

To quote an old adage: Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.

Oh! And a skydiving joke courtesy Jessica:

What's the difference between a bad golfer and a bad skydiver?

A bad golfer goes *WHACK* "dammit!"

A bad skydiver goes "dammit!" *WHACK*

About yesterday's posting of the baby's estimated weight. He is 2 pounds, 13 ounces (not 30). Damn fat fingers...