Jacobs’ suffers a serious line twist, but escapes death
by Nick van der Leek
It was blue-eyed Benno Jacobs’s first jump, and everything went wrong. The 35 year old father of two, jumping for the first time on a static line, emerged 3rd out of the airplane, but immediately found his lines tangled.* For the next 60 seconds Benno fell through the air, while friends and family looked on in shocked horror.
While falling through the air at breakneck speed he was struggling to untangle the lines above him. He quickly streaked past the other two parachutists, hitting the ground first at about 60km/h.
Because it was his first jump, Benno says, he thought he ‘just landed badly.’
A jump at an altitude of 1km usually takes 6 minutes to descend in a parachute. Fearful that something was seriously wrong, Benno said a short prayer and thought of his children as the ground raced towards him under his dangling feet. The 60 seconds he plummeted to earth, Bennon says, ‘felt like an eternity’.
Benno added: ‘But I didn’t know I had fallen.’
After the fall, Benno stood up. He was disorientated and his nose bleeding, and walked to a nearby farm gate.
Remarkably, Benno emerged from this alive, and relatively undamaged. He did not suffer a broken bone or any other obvious injury. He does have a swollen lip, a bruised lung and an overall body ache.
A witness said the parachute was three quarters open, but with a rope running externally, over the shute, constricting its ability to unfurl completely.
I have also done two jumps at the Tempe airport. The second jump, by the way, is the most terrifying jump you will do, simply because you have an idea of what to expect (from the first), and are still unsure of yourself.
A friend who told me about the story (above), said that she went up for her second jump, but couldn’t bring herself to jump, so came down with the aeroplane. I did manage to throw myself out the plane a second time. I forced myself. After a perfect first jump, I immediately knew something was wrong. I couldn’t lift my head.
Twisted ropes crossing hard against my neck meant my head was pushed, forced down. I had to pry the coiled ropes apart and finally got them about 90% open – it was just the outermost cells that wouldn’t open because some ropes were still tangled. But for at least a minute I was trying to decide whether or not to use my emergency shute…and I couldn’t remember whether to pull the left or the right rope on my harness to release it.
I landed safely enough, in a jump that lasted about 4-5 minutes, but my instructor said to me: “Find the guy who packed your shute and beat him up.”
I didn’t do a third jump, but my sister did, and suffered a similar, serious, line twist. It was so bad that the ropes brushed hard against her face, causing her nose to gush with blood in midair. She passed out and woke up, lying in the grass, a power line buzzing in the air above her.
People who intend to do skydiving at the Tempe airport are advised to pack their own shutes, or find a friend or expert to do it for them. A friend of mine who jumps in Johannesburg has done plenty of jumps (and so have most other people) without any mishaps, but there is always the risk that lines can twist, and then it’s a rush of blood to the brain as the Earth begins to accelerate towards you.
*From ‘Man oorleef 1000m-val’, Volksblad, 21 August, by Danel Blaauw
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