Activ-L patient organizes skydiving record!

[mmglobal]

I received the new Skydiving magazine in todays mail. It is always with mixed emotions that I thumb through it. It is wonderful to see and read about such exciting things, but it's also sad because I miss jumping so much.

The new magazine tells of a new German National record organized last month. A 156 man formation was built with only Germans. Skydiving is filled with records... largest formation built in the state, largest formation built at a dropzone.... believe it or not, largest all-amputee or all-deaf record. Anything to get a group of skydivers together for some serious and fun jumping is wonderful.

Let me tell you that organizing a big record like this is an amazing feat. The man who organized this record is Dieter Kirsch. Dieter received a 2-level Activ-L on February 17th, 2006 from Dr. Jochen Feil in the Atos-klinik in Heidelberg, Germany. Dr. Feil has over 2000 skydives himself. I became acquainted with Dieter after meeting Dr. Feil at the Spine Arthroplasty Convention in Montreal in May.

From an email I received from Deiter on May 17th:

On monday the 15th of May 2006 I got back in the air! I made my first 4 skydives. with no problems. That was 12 weeks and 3 days after the surgery. I don´t take any painkillers and I don´t have any pain. Right now, it is allready hard for me to remember how it was, not to be able to get out of bed in the morning.

Dieter, congratulations!!! What an amazing accomplishment, organizing a successful blot like this!

I love exit shots:


Here is the completed formation:

[Poncho]

Kool Pics Mark!!!

Maybe we can get together a spiney jump and formation of some sort??? - I noticed that these pictures have mixed emotions when you view them.... Are we not allowed to go sky diving???

Fellow 2 leve replacement,
TTYL,
Poncho

[fortitudine]

Wow!!!!!!!!

[Michelle]

Wasn't anyone else told no more skydiving or bungee jumping?? I was? Different device?? I've never done it, so attempting it now didn't seem like something I'd fight for, but I just assumed that was a common sense thing. `Course, what's sensible about jumping out of a perfectly good airplane? Always thougth I'd try it one day, but I was willing to take the trade-off!

[mmglobal]

I just dug out some skydive photos... here are some wonderful days from my past life....


Back in the days before digital cameras, skydivers were experimenting with stereo cameras.
This photo was taken with 2 side-by-side cameras to provide different perspective. They
are developed with different shading and can be viewed with a 3-d viewer that makes the
skydivers jump off the background. It was pretty impressive at the time.


This jump was made out of the King-Air that was used for the movie Point Break.
I had to appear in court (not too far from the DZ) for a speeding ticket and stopped
by just to see who was there. (140-mph coming back from a skydiving event in
Phoenix.) It was lucky that I was not planning on jumping that day and didn't bring
my rig, which is predominantly royal blue. The one I borrowed matched my suit and
is invisible in many of the pictures... just a guy in a suit in freefall!


I love exit shots! I was a late diver out of the lead DC-3. This was a world-record
attempt in 1992. We completed a 2 point 100-way, but did not beat the record with
a 3rd point. I'm leaving the aircraft about the time the picture is taken and will have to
dock on the base that is building just about off frame at the bottom left. The glare in the
middle left is the reflection of the late-afternoon sun over the Pacific, about 30 miles away.



I'm at about 2 o'clock in the third ring, 1 to the right of the purple spoke...
black jumpsuit, silver stripe on my rig... long legs. On a jump later this day,
we had a completed 100-way going through a cloud... talk about intense.
The sensation of speed as we approached the cloud was amazing. Everyone's
realization about the situation made it the smoothest flying 100-way ever,
as all of our concentration levels were at their peak.

[mmglobal]

OK... here is my favorite! YeeeeeeHaaaaahhhhhh



Lots of questions... I must explain. When the picture was taken, I just stepped off the basket.
My left foot was on the basket, left hand on the bar up near the burners.) The camera is on the
end of an 18 foot boom being held by Bear. He's very famous for his balloon jump photos and has
more ballon jumps than anyone else on the world... by a longshot. He started skydiving in 1959
and has been jumping ever since.

[mmglobal]

I saw Dr. Feil at SAS in Miami this week. He gave me this video of Dieter's first jump after his 2-level lumbar Activ-L ADR.

What did his doctor say? Well, that's Dr. Feil in the yellow jumpsuit!

Video: Activ-L patient returns to skydiving at 12 weeks post-op.

[Maria]

Do I need a good spine to sky dive? or is the landing that I need to be careful about? Do you get whiplashed by the force of the fall? Extremely cool thing for a doctor to be doing~ would we see that being covered by an insurance policy here in the US???

[mmglobal]

There are a few things involved in skydiving... none are too serious as there are a lot of old and out of shape people skydiving. First, it's physical.... getting the gear on, climbing in and out of the aircraft, practicing the skydive on the ground on creepers or just by bending over and going through the moves.

The skydive is very comfortable if you are relaxed. One big challenge is opening shock. You are in 120mph freefall and you deploy your parachute. If you have good body position and the staged opening of the parachute goes properly, opening shock is not too back... although you do decellerate rapidly. Opening shock on my neck is the only part of the skydive that I'm concerned about. If I jump, I'll wear a soft collar and I'll stabilize my head with my hand after deploying... should not be too bad. If you are not already an experienced skydiver, you can not have this plan... things happen too fast in skydiving and it takes a lot of practice to do it right... and some skill too.

If your parachute opens quickly or if you don't have proper body position when you open, you can get 'spanked' by a too rapid opening and too rapid decelleration. That's why they call it opening shock.

The landing is not problem for me... but it might be for you. I have 850+ jumps and have fallen down on landing maybe 4 or 5 times. For a tandem jump, most DZ's are pretty good about easy landings. If you go, I'd make sure that you only jump when you'll get a consistent breeze for landing... then it's a piece of cake. If you have changing winds or even zero wind landings can be tough.... although a good tandem pilot will not have a problem with it.

I have a friend who's son was very seriously injured on a tandem jump. Choose your DZ like you would choose a doctor. I know tandem masters who have more than 20,000 jumps. Go to a busy DZ with a PROFESSIONAL operation. Don't go to the DZ that's like the one in the movie Fandango.

Skydiving is a wonderful sport and I really miss it. I still haven't sold my rigs... don't know if I'll use them again, but they are still a big part of who I am (or was.)

Mark