Carl Tyler's Blog :: Richard wrote a little piece about his parachute incident

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Well I’m back home and I seem to be healing quite well, thanks for all the really kind comments everyone has posted so far

Well I’m back home and I seem to be healing quite well, thanks for all the really kind comments everyone has posted so far. I just thought I should write a little something so that you all know why I was in the Czech Republic and jumping out of fully functional aeroplanes!

Well it all started back in July 2005 at a Military show in Kent, UK. I was there with a friend and whilst at a BBQ one evening one of my friend’s friend (Manfred) said that we should go parachuting with him. This chap was from Germany and in a thing called OP FOR which is a bit like the UK’s Territorial Army, but they act as opposition forces to the US Army that are based in Germany. He regularly jumps with the Army and told us about the European Military Parachute Association (http://www.european-paratrooper.de/) , that has a facility in the Czech Republic where they teach people to jump. So after a few beers and a few more beers we said why not and thought nothing more of it until around October last year when Manfred got in touch and gave us a list of dates to go out to the Czech Republic and Jump! We decided on the end of May as it was just before my birthday and also thought the weather would be quite good.

So we organised everything, and before we knew it, it was the 18^th May and we were flying over to Frankfurt, picked up our hire car and met up with Manfred in Nurnburg and crossed the border into the Czech Republic. I have to say the country was very pretty, stuck in the past seemed like going 20 years back in time oh and the beer was very very cheap BONUS! We drove up to the airfield on the afternoon of the 18^th, this is when my doubts started to grow. As I have done quite a bit of flying in the past I know that it’s generally good policy to have a nice smooth cut grass field to take off from, not what appeared to be a field that had been left for around 50 years to have every weed know to man to grow on it, but I though well these guys do it all the time so no probs. Also when you see the aeroplane you think maybe it’s safer to jump out than to stay in the thing!

So with these renewed fears in my mind we headed back to the hotel, certainly not your typical Hilton:

But there was free flowing beer so that was all that mattered because at that point my nerves were craving as much god damn alcohol as possible. After copious amounts of beer and some local wild boar we retreated to bed.

We rose early to grab some breakfast before heading of to the airfield for our parachute training and potential jump. There were 33 of us there for parachuting from all over Europe; there were people from Scotland, Spain, Greece, Germany, and Austria. We arrived at the airfield and the started our parachute training which can be seen on this video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8282988562904942476&pr=goog-sl (oh and Steve is the guy that kept saying yes to Manfred at the Military show for us to go parachuting and then pulled out at the last minute).

The training went well and we were ready to go but unfortunately (or fortunately which ever way you look at it!) the wind was too strong for us to jump, so we headed back to the hotel for a while and waited for the wind to drop. The wind started to drop and we headed back to the airfield. As the wind was still slightly strong they decided to take the people with previous jump experience up and test the conditions. They all jumped successfully and then it was our turn (OH CRAP I thought). We donned our parachutes:

I thought I was going to hurl!

We climbed on board the 1948 Antonov AN-2:

And off we went, amazingly the plane did manage to get airborne quite quickly despite the rough ground and long grass, before we had time to think about it the jumpmaster had the door open and was telling us to stand up, I was going second! The jump I was about to do was a static line jump which basically means I am attached to the aeroplane and when I jump out the cord that attaches me to the plane pull the parachute out automatically, so that I don’t have to pull a rip cord so no freefall is involved. The jumpmaster tells the first person to stand in the door in this case my friend and colleague Andy. Before he has a chance to think about what he is about to do he is told “GO” and he’s gone out the door (at this point I filled my underpants!) I shuffle to the door and am told “GO” before I even think about it I am shoved out the door and see the tail of the plane shoot past me and the parachute starting to open about me as I am shouting “1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000” I then look up and pray that my chute has opened properly, thank God it had! I then look down and try and figure out where the landing zone is and turn the parachute so that I am drifting towards it this I do and I think this isn’t all that hard.

Around 40 seconds have passed since I exited the plane and all is going well I am heading towards the landing zone and I am checking that my knees are together and I am turning myself to one side so that I can hit the ground and roll and hopefully don’t hurt myself. With around 30 metres to the ground I pull down hard on the front on the chute to try and reduce the speed that I am travelling across the ground, this works well and I my ground speed is reduced quite significantly, the ground is rushing up very quickly now and then (what know seems like an eternity) thud my feet hit the ground but as they hit the ground my legs come up and I can’t control them(it’s like a reflex action)in the meantime my arse has crashed into the ground and I have bitten through my tongue! I’m slumped on the ground and I think am I alive? I see the blood coming from my mouth and think I’m alive but I’m hurt. I try and get up to take my chute off as I don’t want the wind to drag me across the field I haul myself up in some significant pain and release the chute and collapse face down into the dirt screaming in agony. It was like no pain I had ever felt before in my life. I tried to stay as still as possible screaming for help, whilst waiting for help I made sure I could wiggle my toes they moved and I could feel them (thank god I thought).

Everyone quickly arrived around me and Neil one of the guys from England there with me and Andy, checked that I had full feeling in my legs and arms and held my head and stopped me from moving it. The ambulance arrived quickly after almost running me over, and took me to Plzen (which is where Pilsner beer originally came from) which was around 30 minutes away. I arrived at the hospital and after copious amounts X-rays, Cat scans and ultrasounds I was told that I had fractured my L2 vertibrate, and that it would have to be operated on first thing in the morning.

After a sleepless night of lots of morphine and pain, I went to the operating room and they fused the vertebrate above and below L2 to it so that it wouldn’t move. I wouldn’t recommend being in a Czech hospital, the staff are friendly enough but the language barrier made things very difficult and I did start to go out of my mind. Thankfully Lucy my Fiancé flew out to be at my bedside. Lucy was fantastic she took great care of me and arranged for all the transport for me to get home. I couldn’t have done it with out her.

We returned to the UK on the 24^th May, by private plane and was taken into a local hospital for a couple of days and managed to get home on the 26^th May.

So all in all it was quite an experience my first trip to the Czech Republic I would like to go back there some day, but definitely not to parachute. But one good thing is yes I now have a huge scar, although Lucy says it’s only for her!