{"id":44047,"date":"2023-02-10T10:01:59","date_gmt":"2023-02-10T10:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/?p=44047"},"modified":"2024-04-19T10:27:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T10:27:00","slug":"if-i-ever-need-my-aad-ill-stop-skydiving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skydivemag.com\/new\/if-i-ever-need-my-aad-ill-stop-skydiving\/","title":{"rendered":"If I ever need my AAD, I\u2019ll stop skydiving"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Carmen H\u00fcbner analyses recent Cypres Saves to identify the most common causes\u2026<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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If I ever need my CYPRES, I will quit skydiving\u201c<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is the comment made to me most often since I\u2019ve been working in the AAD industry. I could not really work it out at first. Until I started jumping myself.<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Background<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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I\u2019m Carmen and I have been working for Airtec for more than 12 years. I was not a skydiver in the first place. My job and also my vocation is being a business economist, quite boring for most of the skydivers I meet. \ud83d\ude09 But I love it!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I came to jumping aged 30-something, when I couldn\u00b4t say \u2018No\u2019 any more to Helmut\u2019s urging to do a First Jump Course. Everyone who knows him [Helmut Cloth, CEO of Airtec] knows how persistent he can be. I didn\u00b4t really want to do a jump, because I was totally immersed in my hobby of scuba-diving, an Instructor, teaching my daughter and other little beginner divers. Somehow, I knew skydiving would be a lot of fun for me. But I also knew that two costly, time-consuming hobbies would not work well at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, here I am, and what can I say?! \u2026 I\u2019m not married any more and I haven’t been scuba-diving since my first jump in 2015! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I work for Airtec, \u2018Safety\u2019 is all around me, and the sentence I mentioned at the beginning haunts me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I ever need my CYPRES, I will quit skydiving<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I hear it at least once at every dropzone I go to. In the beginning, I thought it was because I work for CYPRES and people want to tell me that we are not really needed. But I\u2019ve heard it over and over again, mostly from people who have been in the sport for a long time, so long that they jumped without an AAD.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It made me very thoughtful, because Helmut invented the device so that skydivers could survive and keep jumping. For a long time I couldn\u2019t connect the two ideas. Now, a few years later and from a certain point of view, I can understand this attitude. If you find yourself no longer mentally able to bring yourself to the ground in one piece, and you actually have the feeling you can no longer process the abundance of impressions you have while skydiving, then \u2013 yes, you should actually stop jumping. It is good if you have this insight and decide independently before an AAD fire does it for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But on the other hand, in my time at Airtec, there have been countless saves where people were happy that we exist and who carried on skydiving successfully and without feeling ashamed of having made a mistake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Causes a Cypres Fire?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been looking through the Save Reports<\/a> of the last 3 years, to analyse the most common scenarios of a CYPRES Fire. They are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  1. Lack of altitude awareness<\/strong><\/li>
  2. Lack of knowledge of the gear<\/strong><\/li>
  3. Unconscious and\/or medical problem<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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    1. Altitude awareness<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    I list a few cases here which are described in this way or similar in our save reports:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    1. Instructor student situation<\/strong>. AFF student gets away, goes into a spin, panics, instructor tries too long to reach the student. Cypres of both student and instructor fires.\u201c<\/li>
    2. Low main opening, often due to lack of separation after a formation<\/strong>. Other jumpers are nearby so a jumper decides to open a bit lower; when the main parachute is opening the Cypres fires in addition, deploying the reserve.<\/li>
    3. Inexperienced jumper freezes<\/strong>. Jumper with 80 jumps in the last two years, completely loses altitude awareness. He does not pull his main and doesn\u00b4t try anything else. The Cypres opens the reserve.<\/li>
    4. Target fixation.<\/strong> There is an impressive video (below) of two jumpers from Argentina, where the reason of a CYPRES fire is … the joy of having finally found each other in freefall. In this case I would almost agree if someone said he wouldn\u00b4t jump any more. But, I also believe that this would never happen to them again afterwards. Without a CYPRES it would have been their last jump. And if the video didn\u00b4t exist, the two guys would probably secretly get themselves a new Cutter and never talk about it again.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n

      Double CYPRES Fire<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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