Is my brother, the skydiver. An experienced skydiver, he decided to take up base jumping a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, it's tough to find a legal place to base jump, one being the bridge near Evel Knievel's jumping place near Twin Falls, ID (see my post on The road to hell runs through Idaho from my great road trip last summer).
If you can't find a legal place to practice your sport, you go to illegal places, such as a cell phone tower outside of St. Louis, MO (near my brother's home). Unfortunately, cell phone towers have power running through them, perhaps not the safest place to base jump (if there is such a thing as a safe base jumping place).
I'm sure you can tell where this is going.
Let me just say that my brother is one lucky SOB.
While base jumping off said cell phone tower, his chute deployed wrong and the wind sent him back into the tower's power lines. He was electrocuted, knocked unconcious and left hanging in the lines. Fortunately, he was basejumping with a buddy, who happened to have his cell phone on him (and obviously excellent cell phone reception), who called 911.
The resuce team, fire trucks, ambulance and helicopter arrived, taking at least 45 minutes to extricate my brother and transport him to the hospital. (Meanwhile, his buddy was arrested.)
Now, my brother is in the burn unit, having undergone surgery yesterday, awaiting skin grafts and recovering from his first of many surgeries. But, he's conscious, talking, heavily medicated and in a lot of pain.
In his drugged state, he did say that he is giving up basejumping (but not skydiving).
2 comments:
You really do have the best stories about your family. Probably because you have so many, many family members to tell stories about.
He underwent his second surgical debridement today. Eeeks. Drugs are our friends! Hopefully, only a few more surgeries to go, but it will be a pretty painful healing cycle.
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