I’ve always considered myself a bit of an adventure seeker and dreamed of flying as a kid. As a teenager, I wanted to be a pilot and took an introductory flying lesson as soon as I was old enough. My dreams of becoming an airline pilot were squashed when I learned the cost of acquiring enough instruction hours to obtain a commercial pilots license. Little did I know, I would have probably spent less acquiring a pilots license than I spent attending traditional college but the other issue was that my eyesight didn’t meet commercial pilot requirements so I chose other career options.

In my 20’s, I had the urge to go skydiving. I enrolled in a static line skydiving course and did my first skydive solo with the guidance of my instructor on radio. WOW! What an awesome experience! Of course there was a bit of fear climbing out of a perfectly good airplane and hanging on the strut which intensified before I let go but, as soon as my parachute opened and I gained control of the flight, relaxed and enjoyed one of the most incredible experiences of my life. The view was incredible and the feeling of gliding through the air on a warm summer day was both exhilarating and extremely peaceful at the same time. Words simply can’t describe it. Needless to say, I was hooked.

As with all potentially dangerous sports, you can minimize risk by practicing what to do in emergency situations. Part of the training consisted of practicing parachute landing falls – i.e.. learning how to crash. Another part of the training was to learn how to throw your reserve parachute in case of a primary chute failure. To do so, you hung in a harness at ground level and repeatedly went through the motions while voicing the acronym loudly – “ALRRSA” which stands for:

• Arch
• Look
• Reach
• Red
• Silver
• Arch

This quickly became boring when you were eager to jump but thank God it was part of the practice! On my 8th jump, I had a main chute failure. I let go of the plane and began spiraling quickly downward. When I looked up to check the canopy I discovered it had not opened and was just a wadded up mess! Oh shit! With the most intense fear I’ve ever felt, I quickly recalled the acronym and went through the motions to release my primary chute and open the reserve. The professionally packed reserve opened perfectly and with as much grace as possible I flew the reserve right to the target and landed light as a feather!

Along with the kudos from fellow comrades came encouragement to come back the next day but, for some reason, I just couldn’t muster up the courage to do it. Although the odds of both a primary and reserve chute failure on the same flight are minimal, I chose not to gamble and my desire to fly was at bay for nearly 20 years.