Jump Bump

Roommate and a friend (DS) went sky diving today. I decided to stay around the house instead. They left for Raeford Jump around 0700. Around 1500 I get a call. Nuke’s had an incident but everything’s ok. His shoulder is completely dislocated.

Debrief

After leaving the plane (14,000 ft.) Nuke’s instructor, per protocol, had hold of Nuke’s left arm. There was some turbulence or bumping, and Nuke’s shoulder gets pulled out.

At around 6,000, in pain, Nuke waves off, too high of course. Instructor waves off the pull. Nuke can feel his shoulder grinding and is in intense pain – waves off again and pulls.

Nuke handles both controls with his right hand and makes a pretty good landing.

Since Raeford Jump is heavy on the military side, there were a couple of Secret Squirrel and Special Forces medics on hand and they attempted to put things back together using the hard board and weights. Nuke, who never complains about pain, was hurting bad enough that he said the hell with field medicine, after all, this isn’t a combat zone and time to go to the hospital.

I get the call about 1500 from the emergency room and head down to the hospital in Pinehurst. The doctors put the shoulder back into place, some follow up x-rays and we just got home.

Today, BTW, was DS’s very first jump.

DS was ecstatic – as expected. He says he’s going again.

Sky diving is perfectly safe. The fact that Nuke’s minor incident ended completely well is testament to that.

Proper instruction and training is the key.

If you ever decide to try sky diving, rather than learning at a place that is populated by Extreme Sports Junkie types – go to a place that is associated with the military. At a military staffed jump center - everything is done BY THE BOOK.

In North Carolina – the place to learn is Raeford Jump.

It doesn’t get much better.

I didn’t think to bring the camera to the hospital. That photo would have been much more impressive with the IV’s and equipment and such.