Skydiving: My 13000 Ft Fall to the Earth
By Ashley Hermansen
All my life I have wanted to take risks, but as a child my parents often sent me out with a coat of bubble wrap, helmets, knee pads, and gloves… the works. However, as I neared my eighteenth birthday I knew it was my time to test the limits; I made a deal with my mom. She would either jump out of a plane with me or get a tattoo. She chose the plane.
Signing up for the jump was easy. I just had to sign my name about a thousand times and wait for my flight to arrive at the hanger station. What I thought would be a two hour experience in total turned into a four hour wait period, half an hour in “training,” and a ten minute wait for the instructors to get my mother and I onto the plane. During that entire time my nerves escalated to a point that was both thrilling and terrifying.
Our tiny, rickety, plane held nine passengers: my mom and I, our tandem instructors, two videographers, and three single riders. Everybody was chattering, trying to distract the first timers like myself, taking video interviews and making jokes. As we reached a high altitude, I felt my instructor tug me back towards himself to strap my harness to his, and I watched as my mother was strapped to hers. He said something incomprehensible and started pushing me forward towards the edge of the bench. The door opened and I felt as if my stomach had burst. Everyone stuck their thumbs up and smiled widely. The first three single riders seemed to leap one right after the other. Then it was my mom’s turn.
Watching her fall from the plane was probably the scariest thing I have ever seen. My heart leapt with her. After all, that was my mom… the one who raised me, dried my tears, made me laugh — and there she was below me, falling freely with no parachute yet deployed to give me comfort.
At the sight of this I wanted to turn around and tell my instructor “no,” but it was too late. He counted to two, pushed off the plane, and the both of us propelled forward through the air. I didn’t even feel like I was falling. It felt like a table of wind was suspending me in the sky.
Once I figured out my breathing I looked beyond the videographer (who stayed in front of me the whole time to take some glorious flabby cheek photos of me), and witnessed the most beautiful sight. I could see the glare of the sun just touching the curvature of the earth. The haziness of the atmosphere acted as a halo between land and sky and I shed a tear for its magnificence.
I kept falling and falling until the instructor put my arm in front of my face, signaling that it was time for me to pull the chute. I grabbed the golf ball-shaped pull on the side of my person and tugged as hard as I could, releasing the chute and yanking me upward. I felt so free and in control. The instructor spoke into my ear and pointed, “There’s your mom, you can stop worrying now child!” I was so happy to see that her chute had opened above me.
From that moment, we floated downwards over a picturesque view of South Jersey and Philadelphia. There were fields of green below and a city skyline at eleven o’clock. We landed on our bottoms and I hugged my instructor and my mother, so overcome with the amount of emotions I felt.
Most thrilling, fascinating, experience of my life.
P.S Thank you to Skydive Crosskeys and Range for this experience of a lifetime!
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