{"id":29686,"date":"2020-11-20T09:57:28","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T09:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/?p=29686"},"modified":"2020-11-20T10:05:04","modified_gmt":"2020-11-20T10:05:04","slug":"cypres-save-trevor-thompsons-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/cypres-save-trevor-thompsons-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Cypres Save: Trevor Thompson’s story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you’re a military skydiver you need to be ready for everything…<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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SO1 Trevor Thompson poses for a picture at the Circuit of the Americas track
Photo courtesy of The Leap Frogs Navy Parachute Team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On jump number 25, it\u2019s unlikely that you were doing a high altitude, low opening jump with about a hundred and twenty total pounds of gear, an oxygen setup and a big ol\u2019 weapon. <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Oh! And this is all happening in the black of night, by the way. <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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Well, Special Operator 1st Class Trevor Thompson was doing all that \u2013 and bad luck ended up handing him a brutal malfunction to top it all off. Since this incident, Trevor went on to a top-flight career jumping with the US Navy Leapfrogs, so you may rest assured that this crazy story ended really, really well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though your jumps may not be so laden, what Trevor learned that night still has plenty of relevance for your happy-go-lucky civilian hucking. Here\u2019s his story in his own words…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Members of the US Navy Parachute Team “The Leap Frogs” and the US Army Parachute Team “The Golden Knights” prepare to exit a C-130 Hercules
Photo by Special Warfare Operator 1st Class Trevor Thompson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Context<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This particular jump was a military training jump at our training drop zone in San Diego. It was January of 2009.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of the prospective SEALs go through a training program that includes military freefall. Military freefall instruction starts with five static-line jumps \u2013 the old school, round ones. Following that module, you do a normal AFF progression. You do seven AFF jumps; if you pass, they immediately start teaching you to fly your military canopy in a stack with the other guys. Following that, they teach you to jump with a rucksack\u2013something the size of a 40- or 50-liter hiking backpack. It hangs from the middle of your shins up to your waist, and it\u2019s full of gear. Then they teach you how to fly with a weapon \u2013 like, an M4 \u2013 on your side. Then they put oxygen bottles on your right side. Then they teach you how to do all of that at night. And it all happens pretty fast; you\u2019re all loaded up by the time you have 25 jumps. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at that from the outside perspective of a civilian skydiver, that probably seems pretty crazy. You have to remember that those are all guys that have been carefully selected for this kind of thing. They have made it through a lot of training by that point, so the assumption is that they can pick that sort of stuff up.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A normal day at the office for Trevor Thompson and his colleagues, San Diego
Photo courtesy of The Leap Frogs Navy Parachute Team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Blind Horseshoe<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

My accident happened on the final jump of the program \u2013 jump number 25. It was a night \u201ckitchen sink\u201d jump, which means I was jumping with the full kit: the rucksack on my front, an oxygen system and a weapon on my side. We were doing a HALO [high altitude\/low opening] jump.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My exit was just fine \u2013 very stable \u2013 and I picked up my direction quickly. I turned, I faced, I got a bearing and I waited. I was, of course, essentially a student at that point, so my job was to just hang out and not mess around too much until our 5,000-foot opening altitude.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep in mind that we have spring-loaded, ripcord-deployed mains in the military. The ripcord sits at your shoulder level on your right side, and it deploys the pilot chute. The main comes out behind your back in the same place that a normal main would, but it\u2019s spring-loaded like a reserve.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are in a decently good body position, you create a large burble\u2013like a tandem, over the top of you. These spring-loaded pilot chutes aren\u2019t very powerful, so occasionally they will come out and bounce around in that burble. Sometimes, it\u2019ll bounce off your feet\u2013head\u2013boot\u2013whatever, before it clears. On this particular jump, the pilot chute bounced off my back and feet, and when it bounced off that, it went under my right arm and looped around my right hand. Unlike with a civilian rig, the pins at that point were already out, so it was open.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Cypres AAD saved Trevor Thompson in his early days, allowing him a stellar career on one of America\u2019s elite demo teams \u2013 Photo courtesy of The Leap Frogs Navy Parachute Team
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Trouble ahead<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

At that point, the main starts floating up across my back. I was kind of spinning around; and lines were starting to come out. Of course, I started to work through my emergency procedures\u2013but I was literally covered in equipment, and I was in the pitch black of nighttime, too. I looked down in my oxygen mask and I just couldn\u2019t see anything.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I fought it. I tried to grab, blind, where I thought the cutaway handle would be. I couldn\u2019t find it. I tried one or two more times. I grabbed the oxygen hose; the harness; all the pieces of combat gear that were in the way. The extra weight from all that equipment resulted in a much faster fall rate, so I was under a lot of time pressure.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the time I tried it again, my CYPRES was firing. The reserve fired right through that spaghetti of lines and deployed clean over my head, At that point, I was, like: Cool. I am alive. That\u2019s great. Where do I need to go now? I knew I needed to go back to the dropzone, so I grabbed the toggles and turned left.  <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

About a couple hundred feet below me was a hilltop that\u2019s right next to the dropzone. I ended landing on the side of the hill, bouncing down it and landing on the dropzone access road. Just as I\u2019m pulling in my reserve canopy, a car came ripping around the corner. It very nearly hit me, and it was definitely going fast enough to kill me, so that\u2019s two bullets dodged in one five-minute period, I guess. At the end of the day, my worst injury was line burn across my nose and a twisted ankle.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

two bullets dodged in one five-minute period”<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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SO1 Trevor Thompson presents the Star-Spangled Banner during a demonstration at the Great Georgia Air Show, 2015 \u2013 Photo by James Woods<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Aftermath<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

They do something \u2013 which I think is very good, and I recommend to everyone \u2013 in the military. Basically, when you experience an incident, you are required to immediately sit and write down exactly what you remember happening, without talking to a soul.  That\u2019s the best you are ever going to recall it, and \u2013 memory being what it is \u2013 it is still going to be flawed. So right when I arrived back at the dropzone, I wrote it down.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trainers looked at what I wrote, evaluated my gear and my physical state, and agreed with my assessment. I had a strange horseshoe that turned into an entanglement with my main, and my CYPRES saved my life.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that happened so early in my parachuting career, I\u2019ve never, ever had a second thought about the necessity for a trustworthy AAD. I mean, look at the possibilities: If you are unconscious, it\u2019s going to be low, and you\u2019re just going to wake up alive and be happy that you had it. That\u2019s very simple. If you are conscious, it is almost certainly going to be a situation like mine: an absolutely horrifying malfunction where you\u2019re working your ass off to fix your problem and you\u2019re, like, I hope to God this works. That\u2019s the reality. <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have had thousands of jumps between now and then. Understanding altitude, keeping awareness, staying calm and talking yourself through what the actual malfunction is \u2013 that\u2019s all awesome, and a really good thing to do, because maybe that can prevent you from having the AAD fire in the first place. But stuff happens where you fight it when you shouldn\u2019t, or perhaps you have no choice (like me), or you don\u2019t really comprehend how low you really are, or you\u2019re jumping a very small canopy and your time to respond is that much more reduced.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day, this is skydiving, not BASE. Manage the variables you can manage. Be ready!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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