[Ohio-talk] A Question

Wed Sep 23 11:24:35 UTC 2009

Everett,
What a story!  It had me laughing out loud -- and haking my head some 
because, with a lifelong somewhat-managed fear of heights, the whole concept 
of sky-diving as "fun" has always boggled my mind.
Still, this is such an entertaining narrative, I'm wondering why you don't 
publish it somewhere.  Add to it for the Braille Monitor perhaps?  Barbara?

Thanks for sharing--and, um, your desire to do it yet again makes me shake 
my head for sure!

Deborah

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Everett Gavel" <e.gavel at sbcglobal.net>
To: "NFB of Ohio Announcement and Discussion List" <ohio-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2009 4:10 AM
Subject: Re: [Ohio-talk] A Question

Ditto to what Eric said.

I jumped once so far, 11 years ago.  For my 28th birthday.  I said, "Well,
if the Lord's gonna take me outta this world, what better day than the day I
came into it?"  Anyway, I have to do it again.  I didn't quite get it right
the first time.  I broke my leg.  But hey, I'll get it right the next
time...  I hope.

JW, I'd love to, be honored to, jump with both you and Eric.  But right now
I don't see it happening quickly enough, since I am leaving for the
Louisiana Center for the Blind in roughly 2 weeks.

But a story you ask for, and one you shall get.

I talked my brother into jumping with me for my 28th birthday.

Now, the video dude forgot I was with him, and it was him, my brother, who
paid the $75 to get a video of us possibly falling to our deaths.  So, the
video guy jumps out just before whomever he's videotaping.  Well, I jumped,
then the video guy, then my brother.  So the video which my kids love to
watch has it showing me in this tiny lil' plane where the door was small
enough to where we had to shuffle up to the edge on our knees, and fall
forward, out the door and into the clouds below.  It was actually pretty
neat.  The guy told me how to do it just right so that I was sure to go
tumbling, summersaulting as I hurtled down into the clouds.   So the video
has me falling forward into oblivion, and watches me fall downward for a few
seconds as the video guy kneeled at the side of the door of the plane.  Then
it was the video guy and my brother making the plunge.

Mind you, we were both tandem jumping, since it was our first jump.  So our
instructors were hooked to our harnesses, clipped in so that they were sort
of piggybacking us.

Now, my instructor apparently forgot I was blind.  Because when it came time
to hold onto the handles to steer the chutes, and to pull hard on for a
softer landing, well, the one thing they never told me during that 20-minute
lesson just before we went up, was that on a tandem jump there are two sets
of handles.  Might seem to make sense, I know, but I'm telling you no one
ever mentioned that and it just never occurred to me at the time.

Upon our free falling, there was a slight problem.  They show you 3 or 4
ways to be able to breathe in as you're falling at that 180 or 220 mph when
freefalling with only a drag chute open at that point.  It gets kind of hard
to suck in air for some people, at those speeds, it seems.  Well, for me,
none of the 3 or 4 things worked--at all.  So for 10 or 15 seconds or
however long, I could not breathe in.  Only out.  And when you're looking
down at the clouds (and they're below you, then above you, then below, then
above  and then, well, you get it), it can seem slightly scary.  Adrenaline
pumps through your noggin for a few different reasons, y'know?

So after a few seconds that seemed like minutes, of not breathing, and
falling, and panicking, well, the cord was pulled, and thankfully the chute
opened up.  Thank You, Jesus.  And so that's when I noticed my head was
throbbing, absolutely pounding, from the adrenaline a moment earlier.  And
so I was rubbing my headache away when my instructor asked me if I wanted to
hold onto the handles.

Thinking there was only one set, I said no, wanting to continue rubbing my
noggin some more, as I soaked in the peaceful quietness of being still
thousands of feet above the earth.  It was amazing, that feeling.  Falling
pretty fast still, apparently--but feeling like we were almost floating.  It
was a kind of quietness that I don't know if I've ever really felt down here
with "stuff" all around us, y'know?  Up there there was nothing but open
sky, and quietness.  It was beautiful.

And so my instructor dude never mentioned that I should grab "my" handles,
or anything that gave me any inkling that I might want to, soon.  See, the
harder you pull down on your handles as you're about to land, the softer and
more angled landing you tend to have.  Well, with two grown men on the
chute, with only one pulling on any handles, we landed hard, and not at much
of an angle, apparently.  And it was windy.  So as we landed, my instructor
landed on top of me, and we twisted at the same time, and my shinbone sorta,
well, snapped.

The video guy freefell for longer, so got below me, so was on the ground and
got both of our landings, my brother and me.  So my girls love to watch the
video as I hit, we twist, then we fall.  Thankfully they don't have any
video from that point on, of me.  Or else they'd have seen and maybe heard
me cussing up a storm, and punching the ground as I laid there screaming out
curse words.

You guys remember the huge black gentlmen in The Green Mile movie?  Well,
there was a similar guy working at the skydiving place that day.  Nicest guy
ever, and one of the scariest looking, probaby.  Huge, mean looking, but
just tender and humble and a blessing, y'know?  Guys like him are too far
and few between, I'll tell you.

Anyway, here I am laying on my back, punching the ground and wondering what
just happened, and moaning and groaning up a storm--since to that point I'd
never broken a bone in my body.  And this guy comes driving up in a golf
cart, escorting that 56-year-old tiny lil wonderful, humble mom of mine. And
he says in that amazingly deep, soft voice, "Hey now, watch your language.
There's a lady present."  I look around, and not quite realizing he might
just stomp on me or something, blurt out between my moans and groans,
"That's not a lady.  that's my mom!"

And yet I lived.  Neither of them killed me.

Now, let me tell you, no joke here, before we jumped we had to sign
something like a 13-page form with signatures in 11 different places.
Seriously.  I realize now, years later, that it was probably not a document
that could be upheld in court if true negligence was shown.  But still, what
a form.  It said stuff like how no one, not a friend, neighbor, child of,
relative of, appointee or guardian for, or anyone else, nor me, could ever
ever ever sue them for anything, ever.  No matter what happened.

Now, I was stubborn.  And my brother, well, we're our father's sons.  And so
I kept saying it's probably not broken, actually thinking it'd probably hurt
worse, since I never broke anything before, y'know?  And so we drove the 2
hours home with me laying across the back seat the whole way.  This was in
Tampa Bay, in Zephyrhills actually, and it was the middle of April. It was a
tad bit hot.  And with this new bit of drama, I was overheating big time.
So we stopped over near Tampa somewhere to get some bags of ice to put on my
leg and foot.

Now, my mom went in to get the ice.  My brother meanwhile began cleaning out
the car, as I laid there.  He opened all the doors for better airflow.
Well, when he closed the doors again, he didn't quite check to see if my
broken foot was all the way clear.  My mom was coming out the front doors of
the Publix, and says she heard my scream all the way across the parking lot.

I still give him a joking hard time about that now and then.  I mean....
sheesh!

The funny thing is, we kept saying, and hoping, it wasn't broken.  We went
to one of the numerous pawn shops down there and bought a pair of crutches
for $15, and I hobbled around on those for the next 4 days, until we got
back here to Ohio.  See, we went down there to help my mom move back up to
Massachusetts as she had just retired.  My brother and I flew down from
different states, and were going to pack up her U-Haul, and on the way
driving back up to the Cape, in Massachusetts, they'd go the roundabout way
and drop me back off here in Ohio.  So that was one fun thing about all
this.  We went skydiving the day before we were to pack up the U-Haul.  So
now that I had a broken leg, which we were hoping was just sprained or
hopefully only bruised and twisted badly, well, my beloved brother had to
load the U-Haul all by himself.  And God bless him, he did.  I mean,
seriously, that sucked.  But I do enjoy teasing him a bit about that.
Usually right after teasing him about using my foot as a door jamb the day
before.

Alright, anyway, 4 days later, I got dropped off in Ohio, and that night my
now ex-wife said, "Oh brother, no way, in the morning we're going to the
ER."  And yeah well, turns out she was right.  It was a cleanly snapped
bone, and torn tendons at the top curve of my foot where it meets the ankle.
Let me tell you what I learned about that.  Torn tendons hurt a hell of a
lot more and take a lot longer to heal up, than a broken bone.  Sheesh.

Thankfully it hadn't started healing enough to where they had to rebreak it
or anything gruesome like that. So it was all good and ready to go again for
the most part in 4-6 weeks or so.

So, yeah, I hope to get to jump again.  I've got to.  I can't give up until
I at least get it right, y'know?  Or, uh, I suppose, die trying.  ;-)

Hey, when it's my time it's my time--and Jesus will at that time take me
home.  Until then, fun is where you make it.

Strive On!
Everett

Everett Gavel
Successful Adaptations, llc
Copywriter, Editor, & Accessibility Specialist
In Northeast Ohio, USA
everett at everettgavel.com
www.everettgavel.com
(330) 604-5750

----- Original Message ----- 
> Dr.
>
> Barbara can tell you I have talked about it for years. I want to do it. I
> will do it. Money has been the only thing holding me back.
>
> Eric
>

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