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Safety Check Jumpers may say they use AADs only as back-ups, but jumpers who wear them seem willing to take more chances. The question begs to be asked: Are jumpers relying on AADs to bail them out of situations they otherwise wouldn’t get into? Twelve years ago, few jumpers used AADs after initial training. The old-timers will tell you with bravado that they practiced their emergency procedures and were very careful about which loads they got on. Now, thanks to advances in technology, most jumpers wear AADs. The number of annual fatalities has remained about the same over the last 12 years despite growth in the sport, with the major cause shifting from parachutes opened too late or not at all to landing problems on fast parachutes, where AADs have no influence. More recently, reports of serious freefall collisions are coming into USPA Headquarters again. And looking at reports over the last ten years, it appears that jumpers need to study and practice emergency procedures more seriously. The list of 239 documented saves by Airtec Cypreses (click here) shows that only a small handful of Cypres saves involved unconscious jumpers. It’s predicted that as freeflying
becomes more mainstream and practiced by those with relatively few
jumps, there will be more bad collisions. Newer jumpers may be missing
the point of an AAD. An AAD won’t replace good preparation
and training and proper choice of jump partners. An AAD isn’t always that helpful in a bad collision. In some cases, the AAD does its job, but the jumper is already severely injured or even dead. Either way, the tiny canopies we often choose for reserves don’t land very well with an unconscious or disabled pilot. It’s sometimes hard to tell which trauma--collision or landing--causes the worst injury. You hear it more and more: jumpers who say they will not make this or that kind of jump without an AAD. They’re concerned they’ll get knocked out, which they think might be OK with an AAD. They’re also thinking, obviously, that when the malfunction or other oddity happens to them, they’ll handle it fine. But the reports mostly show that jumpers saved by AADs don’t prepare well for problems that occur after the collision danger has passed. Skydivers who get into trouble are those who receive poor or incomplete training or get good training but don’t review frequently. Jumpers freak out when their goggles come off or they can’t find a pilot chute handle on the first try. They seem to lose it when a malfunction gets violent. All these situations appear easy enough to deal with for jumpers who train, review and think a lot about what could go wrong. An AAD might protect a jumper who is unable to open a parachute. But more likely, AADs save jumpers disabled by panic resulting from being unprepared. AADs, RSLs, helmets and even reserve parachutes are all back-ups. None of them substitutes for preparation, training and a realistic view of one’s skills and limits, as well as the skills and limits of others we jump with. --Kevin Gibson |