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#117836 02/18/06 06:29 PM
Joined: Oct 2004
Posts: 3,888
reaper Offline OP
OP Offline
First let me thank all of you who prayed for my friend Chad. I want to set the record straight and give a "Boogie update". It is Saturday night and I am at the SunBreeze Hotel office. We just had two jumpers from Philly say "I Do" above the Blue Water Grill bar. It was a fantastic day to get married. We have Tony Brown's band warming up by the pool for a great reception. Amanda Syme and her daughter jumped today, photos to follow! Windjammer made a birthday jump but we haven't seen Wyoming Carla in a few days. We threw Ron out of the plane this week for a great video and article in the SP Sun. Melody from Ambergris Today jumped last weekend and loved it also. To date we have flown over 1,000 jumps, including 67 tandems. Two of our jumpers went to the mainland when the weather was bad earlier in the week. I was worried and asked the SP police to keep an eye out for them. They showed up a few days ago and felt really silly and all is well. Now for the rumors. Not one single jumper landed in the lagoon. we had a tandem land by sweet basil's because he wanted to be safe and he made the call to land where he knew he would have plenty of options. My staff has an average of 11,000 skydives EACH. We never have jumped in winds that have been dangerous to the jumpers. Yesterday we put up a load of highly experienced jumpers to determine if the winds where OK. I have more safety gear on our standby boat than the local ambulance has. I grounded a jumper for not landing at the landing area and that person has left for home. One jumper landed in the water last week about 30ft. from shore in 3ft. of water. She knew it was a pilot error mistake and has since jumped 20 more times, all onto land. Now about Chad. He had over 4,000 jumps. He was flying a wingsuit with his girlfriend flying a wingsuit next to him. A wingsuit is like a flying squirrel outfit. It enables a jumper to fly slower and farther. Chad impacted the water just outside of the reef. He did not deploy either his main or reserve parachute. He didn't have an AAD automatic opener on his reserve. We spotted him with the jump plane and Aqua Dives employees and some of my staff recovered him. We did a thorough inspection of his gear. It was all on properly and was in perfect working order. A report has been given to Belize Civil Aviation and the SP Police Dept. I will never know what happened. Our guess is that he lost altitude awareness over the water, or had a hard time getting to his proper handles. Our group made the decision to keep jumping. In spite of Chad's death we are moving on. We had a moment of silence for him today. I will be bringing his ashes back with us on the jump plane. I'll have a full trip report when I get home next week. Rich Grimm President, Tsunami Skydivers Inc. cool frown

#117837 02/18/06 06:39 PM
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 7,059
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Love to you Reaper and all your friends, for your courage and hopes.


Dare To Deviate
#117838 02/18/06 06:44 PM
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 190
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reaper,
My wife and I met you last year at BC's and you're definitely a class act! cool

#117839 02/18/06 06:46 PM
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 2,366
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Reaper, I pray for your friend's people as well as his friends.

#117840 02/18/06 06:51 PM
Joined: Oct 1999
Posts: 84,397
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a wedding. thats so beautiful after chad.

i'mcrying again dammit. they should name their first son chad. he left this world as their life together begins....

love and hugs to all...

#117841 02/18/06 07:07 PM
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 539
J
Offline
J
Thanks for the update. I'm so sorry for Chad's death, but glad to read that your event has been able to proceed, albeit, with a heavier heart. I'm sure we'll see you again in San Pedro. Sorry we missed you this trip. Jean & Bruce

PS, My kids still don't want to go to Belize....

#117842 02/18/06 07:30 PM
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 5,563
Offline
Rich - thanks for all you do including keeping us all up to date. Thanks also for the clarification about the lagoon landing. Unless you are here you may not understand how distorted things can look. The coconut telegraph is always working.
We are all happy the weather finally cleared and you had a beautiful day to jump. As I sat here downloading my brazillians of images I realized there was nothing but blue sky behind the jumpers.
My digital card was full (that's the equivalent of running out of film) by the time the jumpers with the 100+ foot banner and the American flag landed. boo hoo
I have a couple hundred pictures and tomorrow I am going to shoot video.
Congratulations to the newlywebs. And BRAVO to all of you!


Harriette
Take only pictures leave only bubbles
#117843 02/18/06 08:02 PM
Joined: Sep 2005
Posts: 453
C
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C
thanks for the update, it was much appreciated

#117844 02/18/06 08:05 PM
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 6,251
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Thank you Reaper frown smile

#117845 02/19/06 05:23 AM
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 645
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R.I.P. Reaper, thanks for taking the time to let us know.

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