cloud.net

Friday, November 16, 2007

How to ruin a beautiful sunny Sunday


Sunday 23rd of September.
Beautiful sunny day. Get a call from a friend telling me “It’s on”, it’s on means it’s a good day to fly @ Stanwell Park (NSW, Australia). Get in the car drive the 60kms, unpack my glider take to the air.
Life is good... had a couple of flights, then the wind starts going north. Can’t fly Stanwell in Northerlies. Wind picks up and a bunch of us decide to go to “The World’s Greatest/Hill 60”... cool I’ve never flown there sounded OK. Drive down to Port Kembla.
Hill 60 looked a little dangerous. Wind had now picked up quite a bit. Saw a guy being dragged, so I decided to give it a mis. Couple of them started going to "The World’s Greatest". The World’s Greatest is a flat beach soaring site. There's a rock shelf, some sand and shrubbs.
People in the air seemed to be having fun. It was pretty windy now. The people I drove down wind wanted to do some ground handling in a park behind, so I could either watch or fly... I decided to fly.
It was windy 17-19kt, so I had to be careful launching. It needed to be windy to fly this site as there is very little elevation (2m). My main concern was launching safely, and this is where I made the first mistake that eventually lead to the disaster I'm going to describe shortly.
The very first thing I should have done was examin the terrain and look at my options if conditions changed, and mapped out my flight plan in my head. All I did was decide to go right after launching.
Above you have the site. The red line represents my flight path, the blue lines represent areas of lift and the big arrow represents the wind direction. As you can see from the above image I didn't really get in to lift. What you can't see is there's cliff wall (3m high) towards the end where I turn around. I turned around (mistake) because I didn't know what was around the corner, and I thought it best to try and get back to lift and sand. My options for landing were very limited, turn in to wind and risk going in the water. When I turned around I had the wind to my back, so my ground speed was +/- glider speed (38kmh) + wind speed (33kmh). On the beach there are large bolders 10-70 litres in volume. My harness/bum engaged one of those bolders, and the resulting impact fractured my back in 3 places; L2 severely fractured on all 3 columns, T4 and T5 fractured anterially, ribs 7 fractured on both sides.
Here's some CT scans. Pre Op Left to Right CT Scan

Pre Op Front to Back CT Scan

Pre Op Top to Bottom CT Scan

Post Op Front to Back CT Scan TPS (I'm not sure if I'll beep at the airport!)

Post Op Top to Down CT Scan TPS

FAQ

1.- How do I feel now?
A: Bad; but hey shit happens and life goes on.
Update 2010-10-10: Yup it still hurts. I get cramps. I can't feel my right foot properly.

2.- Do I beep when I go through metal detectors?
A: Haven't gone through any yet.
Update 2008-5-6: I don't beep.
Update 2010-10-10: Sometimes I beep sometimes I don't, depends on the detector.

3.- You going to fly again?
A: Yes, shit doesn't always happen.
Update 2010-10-10: Haven't flown much (just 2 times)... I get scared.


4.- Don't you think paragliding is dangerous?
A: Yes, but not as dangerous as drinking Tequila.

No comments: