Every few years, a friend of mine will have a “milestone” birthday, which is another way for people to say, “Hey, I’m older than 30 and would like you to pretend like birthdays still matter”, and without fail there is always one guy who wants to go skydiving. Now, I have never accepted an invitation to do this, because I have a short list of things that I would not like to do, including:
- Wrestle alligators
- Be shot
- Go to prison
- Jump out of an airplane that is in the sky, high above the very hard ground
And there are a few others, but they’re much more graphic and will give people nightmares. But that last one – jumping out of an airplane – is a good one because whenever I tell people that I don’t want to try skydiving, someone always responds, “Don’t be a sissy, bro.” Yesterday, though, a 51-year old man in California helped prove why I am fine with being called a sissy.
Craig Stapleton, 51, went skydiving Sunday with a friend and attempted a flag-release stunt in which the parachutes land on the ground with a flag landing straight up on a lanyard, according to ABC News.
He jumped from about 8,000 feet and plummeted toward Earth. His speed was off from his partner, Katie Hanson, though. He said his foot flung up and he dragged his equipment through the riser group, causing the parachute to malfunction.
“I felt like nothing was going right here. I knew I was going to die,” he said. “I thought, ‘If I live through this, I’ll have months of rehab, hospitals … nothing fun again.'” (Via KSL News)
Amazingly, Stapleton only suffered a dislocated shoulder after he landed in a vineyard. Meanwhile, you could ask me to stand on top of a chair and I’ll probably fall into the ocean and be eaten by a giant squid. Or worse:
