Caroline Gilmore
Years ago, I decided to jump out of a perfectly good airplane on a tandem skydive at the Louisburg Airport in Louisburg. I had wanted to try skydiving for a long time, but I was always been terrified of heights, and the thought of putting my life in the hands of some thread and nylon never appealed to me. Nevertheless, I was 41 years old and somehow felt like I had to try skydiving at least once.
So, on a hot Saturday morning in August 2001, I took a friend and drove to the skydiving facility in Louisburg for a noon report time. The friend was along to document the event and to notify my parents if anything happened. After signing away all the center’s liability, the other folks who were jumping and I watched a video about skydiving and went through a safety and instruction lecture.
We each geared up in a flight suit, helmet, harness and goggles and hit the tarmac. It wasn’t a big plane, and probably held at most 18 people sitting on the floor with legs spread, “spooning” each other in two lines in the plane’s cargo area.
Once inside the airplane, I was harnessed to my tandem jump buddy (can’t remember his name) and he was wearing the parachute(s). When we reached the jump altitude, everyone slid on their butts towards the rear of the plane and the jump door. I had been told to not put my fingers on the frame of the jump door, but instinctively did so anyway. There are probably still indents from my fingernails in the metal frame of that doorway! My jump buddy had to “nudge” (read “push”) me out of the airplane because I was gripping the sides of the doorway so hard.
The free fall part of the dive was exhilarating. We started our fee fall at 13,500 feet and fell at 120 mph for about 8,000 feet. The wind was rushing by my ears and I was flying! My dive buddy told me that I could alter our flight by moving my arms in different directions. I had been a diver in high school, so did a few sweet diving moves to maneuver us in various directions. It was really fun. But, then it came time to pull the cord and release the parachute at about 5,500 feet. When the parachute deployed, we experienced a big upwards jerk and then started floating gently towards the earth.
Once we were floating (“under canopy”), I looked around and down to discover that those postage stamps on the ground below me were big farms and those ants on the ground were vehicles. Additionally and unfortunately, my harness didn’t fit properly. It was painfully impinging on my femoral artery, cutting off my part of my blood circulation and I started feeling light headed.
Even though I had never fainted before, I knew I was definitely on my way to fainting. I told my jump buddy this and asked him if he had ever done tandem skydived with anyone who had fainted before. He assured me that he had. I asked him to get us down as quickly as possible, but he pointed out that’s not really a viable option when skydiving.
The last thing I remember is being told to lift my legs for the landing and me thinking or saying that my legs were SOOO HEAVY. The next thing I remember is waking up face-down in the grass with a few people standing over me talking. I had fainted as we were landing and never got my legs and feet up and out in front of me.
Fortunately, nothing other than my pride and ego were hurt, so it turned out well, considering. I asked my jump buddy again if he had even skydived with someone who had fainted before. He told me that he hadn’t. But things worked out fairly well this time.
Caroline Gilmore gets up after fainting during tandem skydiving landing in Louisburg in 2001.
My advice to future skydivers is to make sure you are comfortable hanging in your harness before you skydive in real life. And take someone to document the event for you.
In retrospect, I am glad that I tried outdoor skydiving once, but I will most likely not do it again. The free fall part of the jump was wonderful, and I was so glad to be able to recapture some of that feeling through indoor skydiving. Another happy ending…
First-time Tandem Outdoor Skydiving opportunities in NC:
Triangle Skydiving (www.triangleskydiving.com) in Louisburg; from $214.
Skydive Paraclete XP (www.skydiveparacletexp.com) in Raeford; from $209.
Piedmont Skydiving (www.piedmontskydiving.com) in Salisbury; from $179 on weekdays to $209 on weekends
Indoor Skydiving opportunities in NC:
Paraclete XP Indoor Skydiving (www.paracletexp.com) in Raeford; from $64
iFLY Charlotte (www.iflyworld.com/charlotte) in Concord; from $70