Skydiving?

Do you have any idea how many people died skydiving in 2008? 58... How many since 2004? 322... yet people still decide to do it, myself included. Why don't we call it what it is, "sky-plummeting"? Isn't skydiving just a suicide-like activity in which a person jumps out of a plane and releases a parachute in hopes that it will reduce his rate of descent below a bone-crushing threshold before he makes contact with the earth? Almost three years ago, I went skydiving for the first time, for my friend Steve's 18th birthday. There were six of us: Preston, Steve, Bo, Blake, Morgan, and myself.
Was I excited? Oh ya... Was I terrified? Partially... My nerves were actually doing pretty good until I started to fill our the application. The very last section before the signature had these instructions: Rewrite this sentence word for word. "I UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE INHERENT RISKS INVOLVED WITH SKYDIVING, INCLUDING DEATH, AND I RELEASE SKYDIVE UTAH FROM ANY AND ALL RESPONSIBILITIES AND LIABILITIES." I was working at a law office at the time, and I remember thinking, "I wonder if this would hold up in court...". After signing away my life and dropping some coin and before any of us chickened out, they had us in our "jump-suits"... I was just hoping it wouldn't become my "he died in this suit"... After getting dressed for perhaps the last time, they had us scrawled out on the ground, on some weird contraption practicing our back arch. We were told that if we failed to perform this menuever correctly that our back could snap and we'd fold up like a taco shell. (At least I wouldn't have to worry about the landing right?). Death is a very good motivator. Most of the time when somebody says, "Do this or die" I do it...and I do it as well as I possibly can.
Soon thereafter we boarded the plane... Our plane had a sliding fiberglass door. Weird? I thought so. Before I knew it, we were circling over Ogden. Obviously my heart was starting to beat a little faster, my breathing a little more frequent. I don't remember, but I'm sure I had to pee. After we ascended to our jumping altitude of 13,000 feet, a little red light went on inside the cabin and we were told it was D-Day, time to jump. Oh, I forgot to mention one glaring detail. This whole flight I had a dude strapped to my back, pelvis to pelvis... Every movement had to be perfectly choreographed...
As we neared the open door, he asked me if I wanted to do a flip when we jumped out. At the time, I had never even done a flip off a diving board at the swimming pool. I consented...
With a 1-2-3, we barreled out the plane, flipping end over end. A common misconception about skydiving is that it feels like "The Rocket" at Lagoon, that stomach in your throat kind of a feeling. Wrong... It feels more like flying, more like "Soarin' Over California." It may be the single most awesome feeling/experience I've had in my life. We free fell for about a minute before he pulled the parachute. I've never been so happy to see neon fabric in my life. After a few more minutes of semi-peaceful/painful wedgy free floating, we came in for our landing. My instructions were to stick my legs straight out. We landed without incident. (Only later would I discover how lucky I was...) The experience was a blast...and low and behold, almost exactly a year later, we did it again. Only this time we exchanged Bo for Rachel Clark.
I'm giving props right now to Rachel Clark. She's amazing. I know she hates it when people say she's like "one of the guys" (rightfully so), so I won't say that; but I will say that she has more "balls" than Bo... Bo was afraid of "death" or something...whatever right? (I'm gonna take some heat for this. Bo, I'm kidding...you had already proved yourself...and in retrospect, I should've followed your lead.) This time went pretty much like the first...all the way up until the landing. As you know, my first attempt at defying the laws of gravity and resulting death was without incident. This was not the case when I tried again. As before, when we approached landing, his instructions were to lift my legs parellel to the ground. I though, "Ya ya, I'm not a rookie." We hit the ground perfectly, not bad at all. I started to turn around (as best I could strapped to another human being) and congratulate him on the landing. Little did I know I was just seconds away from being thrown the ground by a gust of wind. Apparently it is someones job to grab the semi-inflated parachute once the tandem team lands; this is basic Skydiving Assistance 101. Maybe the guy that had that responsiblity had decided he'd done enough for the day and he was gonna humiliate me. Mission accomplished. As I said, me and my instructor were hurled to the ground, face first. Although, I must admit, my instructor had me to break his fall. We (I), the proceeded to be drug through a dirt field, with my face and mouth taking the brunt of it. Once we were finally able to stop our skid and stand up (with the parachute safely in tow) I proceeded to spit up and cough out mouthfuls of dirt. Of course everyone was laughing at me, and I admit it was funny. I just never thought that my biggest injury while skydiving that day would've come after skydiving. And bytheway, 32% of all skydiving deaths occur while landing...it doesnt' surprise me.