whalen@erlang.DEC (An Italian at heart) (04/15/84)
Add another to your list, I have about 250 jumps.
Bad experiences with AFF? I've haven't (yet) been involved in an AFF
program so I don't have any, but a friend of mine who is an AFF jumpmaster
has. I heard this story second-hand so there may be some inaccuracies.
The situation is he was jumpmaster (on the student's left), and the
student was VERY unstable. In fact the student shook the primary off!
Well, my friend was hanging on to the student with gorrila grips and
nearing 3000', time to get the student's parachute out. He worked his way
around so that he could reach the student's main handle and pulled it, and
did his best to hold on until it opened. Well it opened, and he got the
student's boots in his jaw. This put him practically out for a short
period of time, and little while after that he snaked his pilot chute out
of the pouch so that he could come down under a good main.
When he got to the ground he was rushed to the hospital with the broken
jaw, where they wired it together so that it could heal. This happened
close to six months ago, I have not seen him since then and don't know if
he is still doing AFF work, my guess is he is. (A couple of years ago he
broke both his ankles in a jump (almost identical breaks) and the first
thing he asked the doctor after his ankles when he became coherient was
when he could jump again!)
Rich Whalen
Digital Equipment Corporation
Hudson, MA
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