When I was 17, I started skydiving in Clovis, New Mexico. I've had several close calls over my time jumping.
Which include the time a new jumper in a head down dive when I was jumping in Muleshoe, Tx (yes there is a town by that name) missed me by about 10 -20' (traveling between 150 - 20MPH), or the time my then girl friend (and now wife of 43 years) and I were scheduled to do a round robin set of jumps in southern California on Spikes Twin Beech, but due to a demonstration jump I was invited to that popped up (Port Hueneme Navy Base I believe) we re-scheduled for the next weekend round robin. Everyone on the original round robin died when the plane crashed on take off inTaft, California (
https://www.usdeadlyevents.com/1982...parachuting-jump-plane-crash-near-taft-ca-14/).
Sometimes you do stupid stuff that you know is outside the proper parameters of your sport. In my case, my parachute malfunctioned on two previous jumps, and I handled those situations well. I was jumping at the Perris, Ca. dropzone one weekend when I had my third malfunction (and last fortunately).
I was so "used" to the process of cutting away and deploying my reserve, that when it happened again, I made two almost fatal decisions. First, I decided that I would get a little more free fall out of the situation since my Main "slowed" me down (a bit) so I didn't immediately deploy my reserve after cutting away from the main.
Second, on my previous two malfunctions, I lost my cut away devices (AKA pud) and my reserve ripcords. I was not making a lot of money at the time, so I wanted to hold on to these. That in and of itself is not such a bad decision, but may have contributed to the next problem.
Since I was not at full terminal velocity due to my main being deployed, when I cut away, I started to pitch forward and roll onto my back. So I'm holding my cut away pud (pat on the back), but now about to be upside down relative to the earth, which is not ideal when on your last parachute. and apparently very close to the ground.
Out of shear panic, I ditched the cut away device and pull and discarded the ripcord like it was on fire.
I reverted to my training for my very first jump, and hit the hardest arch position I think I ever did, bringing me back to a belly to the earth position. The reserve ( a wonderful Piglet that opens in milliseconds) opened and I oscillated about 1 and 1/2 times before landing behind the packing shed (fortunately not on it).
Funny thing is that my future wife (who also jumps), who I hadn't met yet, was standing behind the packing shed and had to run to keep from being pancaked by this Dumb A** Marine. She told me later that she could see the space between my fingers I was so close to the ground. I had several other close calls before I stopped jumping in 1992, but this was probably the closest to death I ever came.
