Hi there, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Cloudbase Mayhem. Those of you who are paying attention to the airwaves have heard about some of, but probably not all, of the carnage lately in beer. It has been an exceptionally rowdy season for carnage out there. There always is a ton, and it's, I think, mostly a numbers game, but also big terrain. You're in the Himalayas. Things get big quick, and many of you, I'm sure, heard the news about my guest today, Ben Lewis, Canadian pilot from the Yukon, who got sucked up in Cloud Suck and had a number of injuries, passed out, went above 7,400 meters. That's over 24,000 feet, and incredibly came down at an unbelievable descent rate, whether his glider was all iced up or in a rope or what, we don't really know, because he was unconscious, but landed in the trees and made it home.
This is his story. It is absolutely unbelievable. I've heard a lot of crazy and wild stories being around this game and this sport for so long, but this one might take the cake, so you're in for a treat, and it all ends pretty well. But before we get to it, I wanted to make some......offhand comments about what I think about is going on out in Beer. I'm not there. I have been there twice. I was there in 2009 and 2011, and there was a lot of carnage back then, and it's just become an incredibly popular place to go for people from around the world. It has amazing conditions nearly every day this time of year, and a lot of big flights go down there in the spring and in the fall every year, and so it's definitely on the map.
But......I think the approach for many people going there is wrong, and what I mean by that is I think there's this real sense of safety and security flying there, because there isn't a lot of wind. You learn there pretty quickly that you can dive into places that you never would in the Rockies or the Alps. There's not a lot of lee, typically, but it is huge terrain. It is, once you go back a little ways......although you'll hear in this story, you don't have to go back. It can happen on the front range, too. But, you know, you get into areas that require either impossible walkouts in a helicopter or very long walkouts, or if you're hurt, very slow and very challenging retrieves.
Apparently this year, in fact, there was...sounds like, unfortunately, there was a fatality just this morning over there, but the day of this accident when Ben goes nuclear and goes up......over 24,000 feet, I think there were eight other accidents that day. A whole bunch of reserves. There's been a ton of reserves every day. There's been a lot of mid-airs. And because I work so closely with Global Rescue, I'm often getting the call on, hey, can you help out with this? Or, you know, why did they not get a helicopter for us? Or why are they not helping out with the claim? We, as a community, need to be a lot more thoughtful about how we're......using rescue. You know, it's not...we shouldn't be using rescue or heli rescue for being stupid.
What I mean by that is, you know, you get hypoxic, you don't have the gear that you need, you land out really deep, and you've put yourself in a tough spot. That's not a place for a heli rescue. A heli rescue is for accidents. But too many of those are happening as well. And if we keep stacking up the accidents, then people like our......companies like Global Rescue are just going to exclude paragliding. And that's it. They're one of the last companies out there that provides coverage for extreme sports, hang gliding, paragliding, base jumping, that kind of thing. And we want to keep that coverage going. But it's not going to if, you know, they're getting calls constantly from paragliding.
They pay attention to the numbers, and it's all just the bottom line. That's how insurance companies work. We could help that a lot, but also just help our families and our friends and other pilots by going to places like Bir and putting a lot more margin into your calculations. So that's, you know, having emergency gear, that's having an in-reach and understanding how to use it. But in places like Bir in India, they don't allow satellite trackers. So A, you'd have to sneak it in to use it.
If you go down and have an accident, it's not like it is in most parts of the world where you can just call a helicopter and deal with the claim on the backside. Helicopters and Bir, and in many places in the world, aren't going to come get you unless you pay up front. That's quite hard to do when you're on the ground and you're hurt. And so these kind of things have to be factored in. Ben tells a story in the show about a pilot who was in a relatively easy place to get rescued, had a broken back, and laid there for three days. Before the helicopter came and got him because they couldn't get the helicopter paid. And it took them that long for the insurance company to pay the helicopter. This, in my mind, is not a shortcoming of these companies. That's just how it works. They have, you know, when you go down hard, you have to let the insurance company know in advance that what's happened and it's got to go through a whole chain of command.
And that often is way too long. And so we just have to get the helicopter coming and deal with that. And hopefully they cover it. But it doesn't always work out that way. And so, you know, I think going to a place like Bir, you have to go in knowing that there's going to be a whole lot of shortcomings. And if you go down, you've put yourself in a really serious situation. So, you know, maybe we got to start thinking as a community of, you know, flying less hot gliders, having a ton more margin, carrying a lot more stuff. And as you'll hear, it's a lot of work. Here in this one, flying at times where, you know, it's safer. You know, in this case, a lot of pilots were lulled into a false sense of security because of previous days.
Big, you know, big clouds and cumulonimbus just dissipated. It went away. And so that becomes your mental model for the future. And that's a terrible mental model. You know, we can't predict on Tuesday because of what happened on Monday. Even though it looks exactly the same, there's different energy and there's different, all kinds of things in the, in the, in our atmosphere that could change from day to day. And we've got to create mental models that are going to allow us to fly the next day. So my point here is that there's too much carnage going on here in Bir. If it keeps happening, we're going to not have any company cover us. And this is on our community.
I think it's really important that we do and, and our families and friends will thank us for it. Next thing I wanted to talk about, and this is actually related to this, although it wasn't planned to be, but flying in rain. I had a listener reach out a couple of weeks ago, sent an email who was flying in rain. Wasn't that hard. Wing went parachutal when he went to land and he's really, really banged up. And just wanted me to comment. And I think many of you heard the story about my flying in very light rain situation in the first day of the ex-Alps, when I was doing the journalism thing over there in the race last summer, flying out towards Waugh Grine and I was flying a brand new wing.
It literally had zero minutes on it until that day. And I understand that Ozone's put out information about this on their website, but especially when wings are new, the fabric. It allows raindrops to stay on the surface that it doesn't kind of soak into the fabric. And this makes it very easy when you just, you don't need a lot to lose the flow of the wing. It breaks the surface with the air and, and a wing can go parachutal in very, very light rain these days with the fabrics they're using, especially when they're new, when they're, when the porosity is reduced. So, something to just keep in mind, if you're flying in rain, obviously we all know we shouldn't be flying in rain, but if you're even in light rain, you need to immediately give yourself as much margin as possible and stay on bar.
Do not under any circumstances, go use big ears. Cause that just makes less surface area for the wing to, it's more easy for the wing to go parachutal. But if you can Google it, Chrigel does some really good videos on what to do when you're flying. And, and basically the trick there is to hammer your speed bar and you do not get off the speed bar until you're safe on the ground. So if you're coming in and you're 20 feet off the ground, in fact, one of the bad accidents in beer was exactly this, a pilot was maybe on speed bar, but, you know, coming in to land, came off the speed bar when the wing was pretty wet and just instantly went parachutal and pounded hard. So got to stay on the speed bar to the ground.
Ideally don't fly in rain. Period. But of course it does happen from time to time. But I know from personal experience, from my ex-alps experience last year, I had flown in much, much heavier rain than that, especially in that race and previous editions. And it really caught me by surprise. And I was quite low over trees and had to hit my speed bar twice to the first time to just get out of it. And then I was, you know, I moved away from the terrain and I was making a very slow little turn, tiny bit of break and did the same thing again. So just be wary of that, especially with a new wing, that they go parachutal really easy. So if you're low, it can be bad. Let's get on to the show. This is an incredible story.
Sit back, relax. You will not believe it. Pretty wild. Story of Ben Lewis going really tall and things getting crazy out in beer just a week ago. Cheers.
Ben, welcome to the mayhem. I wish we were connecting because of some other incident, but I think most of the world knows about your cloud suck incident in, in beer, a cross country magazine put out a really good little rehash of it. And I actually read your comments on X contest because somebody over there emailed a couple of days after your incident and said, Hey, he's never seen so much carnage. Uh, there's been a ton of incidents and few of them I've actually been involved with, with a global rescue and helicopters and all that kind of thing. It sounds like beer is getting a lot of traffic this year and, and, uh, many things have gone down, but maybe yours had tops the cream of the exceptionally wow factor.
And so let's, uh, before we get into the cloud suck and going super tall and passing out and everything, I want to hear everybody. I want to hear all about that, but let's briefly just touch on your background, how long you've been flying, where do you live, how old are you, all that kind of stuff. Give us your quick flying resume.
Yeah. Hey, Gavin, thanks for having me on the show. Um, yeah, so I'm, I'm 45. I'm a family doctor up in the Yukon, which is Northwest Canada. Um, I've been flying a long time. I, I could took a one day course in New Zealand back in 2009, and then my buddy and I split a glider. Um, and we just kind of. Took off a mountain in the Yukon, you know, and made some stakes there and flew kind of rarely for the next decade, um, until sort of upgrading my gear and then kind of getting more serious about, uh, three years ago with some tours in Columbia and sort of more flying in Mexico, uh, still pretty low air time. I kind of was around, I think a hundred hours heading to beer. Um, yeah, I think that probably shows a little, um,
trip to beer was, uh, 2009 and I think that was the first, first place I ever did a hundred K I was somewhere maybe around that now, maybe it was 200 hours or something, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's big terrain for low hour pilots, but it, it seems to attract many of them. Did you find it intimidating or redigging it? Uh,
I mean, yeah, there's, like you said, there's tons of carnage. Like we're on the, uh, the WhatsApp, you know, search and rescue chat group. And every day there's, there's all sorts of carnage. I think there's a sadly. It's like earlier today, even, right? Like it's, uh, it's crazy. Everyone's tossing reserves and crashing and midair collisions, people getting lost in the back mountains. Um, so that part was intimidating and, you know, but the, the flying itself and yeah, I certainly had my, every day we were having our personal bests. Uh, you know, I went to beer with a few other buddies and, and it was great. You know, you just fly these long flights for the first time, break a hundred kilometers and then, you know, break one 70 and then, you know, go kind of further and further. And that was probably part of my problem was trying to go for a 200 kilometer flight and sort of pushing the boundaries of it.
The, the gentleman who emailed me about your incident as in, which I'd already heard about, but also these others, I think the day that you had yours, there were something like nine reserves or maybe nine accidents. I can't remember what it was, but what do you chalk up all the carnage to what what's, what's going on out there? Cause there always is. And I think it's a, it's a numbers thing. I mean, it used to be that the, you know, the sounds bad, but the, the Russian contingent was always a big part of it because you had these pilots coming out that literally had 10 hours that were flying CCC wings. You know, there was, there was this, uh, huge disconnect between experience and where people were, were flying.
And that was, that was part of it. Uh, especially with the Russians back in the day. I don't know if that's still. The case, but the, a lot of it's just, you know, you can be on beer. I mean, even back in, you know, when I was, I was there in 2009 and then 2011 and, you know, there'll be 250 people on launch in the Himalayas. So I think a lot of it's just numbers, you know, you can, you, you see the same kind of thing in Annecy, but the carnage has been extreme this year. And what do you chalk it up as? Is it just too many people like Ben Lewis, not a left, not, not enough hours or. Is it some, what is it?
Uh, yeah, I think the number is like the house thermals are crazy busy and there's definitely mid air collisions every few days for sure. Which, you know, unfortunately I think was the cause of the fatality earlier today. Um, but, uh, yeah, I haven't, I, I was lulled into a, like a false sense of security with all these like huge threatening looking clouds actually like being super benign and, you know, you can kind of skim underneath them and no real consequences for, for a couple of weeks, all it. And then. And then, you know, and people who just drove out of the, you know, the base, they just go back and forth and it was a, you know, I was like, oh my God, the wind's so strong. And then suddenly, you know, storm, a storm appeared basically our first real thunderstorm. And I just wasn't expecting it and I wasn't writing for it. So, I mean, that's why kind of caught me out there. Um, why are, are everyone else kind of crashing and throwing reserves? I think that's probably, yeah, I think a lot of just sort of inexperienced mountain flyers, but there's also experienced pilots going down.
And. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, there's a lot of. Yeah. You know, advanced wings in the trees and. people hiking down, or relaunching, and yeah, I'm not sure exactly I
wonder, I wonder if it's... I had this experience that people who listen to the show regularly have heard this. I won't get into it too deeply, but I had this experience in Annecy when I was a very newbie pilot, now 15 years ago or so, where one day we went flying and it was mostly perfect. There was this big cell growing over, actually, the north of the lake, north side of the lake, kind of towards Geneva, and it went so big that I was just amazed that there were people in the air, you know? So we, my little group, we landed and then this thing just dissipated and it went away, and so it made us look kind of dumb. And there were, you know, still hundreds of pilots in the air and at all levels. There were, you know, really advanced pilots, and there was a ton of people flying around on enas and tandem pilots, and you know, just to, you know, typical Annecy day.
And so the next day, it was picture the same, it was exactly the same. The same cell, the same time of day, the same amount of sun, the same kind of energy in the sky, and and so you know, we stupidly went, "Well, that one went away yesterday, it'll do the same." And it didn't, and it went nuclear, and the gust front was vicious, and people were raining down on, you know, into the trees and bouncing off roofs, and there were a lot of accidents. Uh, people landed in the lake that day, you know, it was just proper chaos. And you know, I again, I was, I was pretty new, but it was, it really opened my eyes to how much we can't really, uh, you know, we really got to be careful when it comes to big stuff.
Cause it can just, like you said, it can dissipate or it can go massive. It sounds like that's kind of what you, what caught you out. Yeah,
definitely. Like my buddies and I were all talking about the big clouds. all like oh they look pretty dark and scary and we're like yeah they do but everyone's still flying and tandems are still going and everyone seems fine real
lemming effect going on.
There, yeah, and so we just got used to these huge cumulus clouds and like not really having a, you know, like a much cloud suck and just being fine to fly underneath them and, yeah, um is
There much, uh, you know, when I, when I was there, I don't remember even ever looking at the weather. You know, it's this crazy place where you just look at the sky and you go, but that might have been because it's 2009, 2011. We've got way better models these days. Are you all paying a lot of attention to weather models and CAPE and things that would have potentially predicted that this day was different? I
Would just check Windy, actually. And I was looking at Windy for a few days, and and I think it seems to be just kind of not very accurate at all for beer air. It was predicting like a better day than the previous days, and it was going to be worse the next few days. And so I was thinking this was probably like the last good XC day, um, for a while, and I should go for a, you know, a longer flight if I can, um, and it, uh, yeah, I was basically predicting the same as it had been, but but you know, less sort of less cloud cover, and you know, less activity, um, and it was just entirely wrong, so
You're, you're from the Yukon, Northwest, uh, Yukon Northwest Territories, and that I, I don't, not very familiar with that terrain. I've flown quite a bit in Alaska, and I've been a bunch up in the Coast Range in BC and stuff around Terrace. But the, you mentioned you've been going down to Columbia lately and getting kind of more serious about XC since 2019. What's your mountain experience? You know, how much time have you spent in places like the Alps or places like Beer with just big terrain? I
think beer is the biggest, uh, mountain's biggest, yeah, mountain flying I've ever done for sure. Uh, we do have mountains in, in the Yukon, up here in northwest Canada. They're sort of isolated and, you know, you kind of fly from one mountain to the next, but it's not like a huge mountain range and they certainly don't extend thousands of meters into the sky. Um, yeah, so I'm very limited, you know, in terms of kind of proper, you know, tall mountain flying, okay?
I wash your track, uh, and I like, I said, I think most people listening to the show have probably read the report in in Cross Country, the the article that they put up, if not your comments, which had your comments from on your X contest, which I appreciate very much that you put out there. Often when things like this happen, you know, pilots are embarrassed or ashamed or, you know, nervous of putting it out there in the public sphere, and I think it's really valuable that people do, and thank you for for doing it. Uh, it sounded just unbelievably terrifying. Uh, I think most people listening have probably spent a little bit of time in a white room one time or another, and of course we know we shouldn't, and we shouldn't fly in rain, and we shouldn't get cloud sucked, but these things do happen, and it's it's terrifying being in a cloud and just not knowing up from down and left and right, and but you are in something just way more violent than I think
Most people, thankfully, ever experienced, but take us through that day. You look, you were flying. You flew from Beer, look like you made it out, uh, Dharamshala. I, I didn't, I didn't zoom in. I don't know if you went past Dharamshala or, or how far out, but yeah, what, just rerun that day a little bit, yeah.
Sure, um, yeah. And it was certainly embarrassing to post it, like I'm not proud of obviously making these rookie mistakes and ending up almost dying, you know? That's, uh, but I felt it was important to do. And basically, there was certainly a lot of people who were doing it, and I think it was a story there. So, um, yeah. So the, the weather predicted it a reasonable cross-country day, and so I, I took off fairly early, you know? And the house thermal was just clogged with gliders. It's super busy, um. So I basically exited as soon as I could, and then, you know, scrounged for lift heading west towards Dharamshala, and I was kind of hoping I'd already flown like a 170 and was kind of hoping to break 200 kilometers. I only had a few days left in beer, and the best way to do that was to pass Dharamshala. So I, I'm not sure how far past that I flew, like I don't know, 15, 18 kilometers, something like that, which was, uh, I was kind of late in the day as well because I didn't get, you know, a ton of height initially.
If you, you know, if you get lots of height in the, in the house thermal, you can basically glide a third of the way there, and that didn't happen, um. It was kind of a, it was a hard, hard to get lift fighting day, um, initially anyway, and Uh, yeah, so I, so I flew quite a bit past
And uh, and the cloud uh cover was forming, so you know, the cloud base was dropping, and so I made my way back, you know, to familiar territory. Fine, I was keeping free of clouds; I was able to sort of skim along the bottoms. Yeah, and then I was back in familiar territory. I had been, you know, in that location of several times, so I had these GPS track logs I could follow. You know, I was getting kind of harder and harder to stay down out of clouds, like, you know, full speed bar was working initially, and then full speed bar and big ears, and then I was able to get to the top of the cloud, and I was able to then—I was in a cloud, and I just sort of you
flying i
was flying Alpina 4 and
And could you, did you have a pretty good sky are the was this kind of embedded qnims or, uh, you know, could you do you have a pretty good view of how, how vertical things were getting? No,
Not at all, it was, it was basically, uh, yeah, this, this overcast layered at like probably 8,000 initially, and then it was dropping to, you know, 75, 7,200 feet, okay? And so I was, yeah, I had very poor visibility into the distance; even if I was free of clouds, I couldn't really see anything, you know, building in the further east of me.
Okay, are you all on, are you on radios? How are you communicating with your your buddies? Yeah,
I was on on solo that day, like my buddies were kind of hanging around, um, the launch area. I think one had sort of entered west a bit and actually was caught in the storm as well; he got kind of rained on and had a had a ditch out. And yeah, we were on radios, but uh, I was, I was pretty far out and I probably need a better radio because I really had no communication with with my buddies at all, so at
This point, there's no there, and you all aren't sharing a say a frequency with most people flying at beer; you were just on your own freak, yeah.
I mean, I have, um, I have a dual-band radio, and I had the the emergency frequency on the on the second band, but, uh, oh.
So, was anybody on that going, "Hey, it's, it's getting really big," or were there any warnings, uh, via text or otherwise?
Um, I would hear bursts of language; it often wasn't in English, though, so I, I really wasn't sure what was going on, okay? Um, yeah, and there was kind of nothing for my friends. I wasn't trying to reach them. I was, uh, I mean, for a while I thought things were fine, and I was, you know, even when I kind of got sucked up into cloud and then speed bar and big ears wasn't really working, I was still able to follow my GPS track, and even though I was still climbing, I kind of thought things were going to be okay. I thought I was going to fly through the area of lift, I thought I was going to come out on the other side of the sky. I was going to fly through the area of lift, I was going to cloud, um, and I just kind of kept waiting for that to happen, uh, and I was sort of leery of, of, uh, kind of flying off into the valley because I didn't really, I hadn't been there, you know, that far south before. I didn't really know that area, even though it, you know, replaying it in my head, absolutely I should have just flown south, you know, just taking
a right turn and flown south
Absolutely, yeah. The first sign of, like, you know, this just kind of unrelenting lift, and I just kind of expected to fly through it. I'm not, uh, yeah, no, it's for sure in retrospect. And then it, uh,
And what's your, what's your vario doing? Early stages, are you in a three up, at five up? I mean, is it just zinging, or was it? Oh, okay. This is probably going to be manageable, yeah.
I know, early it was kind of a gradual, sort of lulled me into, you know, it was sort of like plus one, plus two, this is with full speed bar, and you know, big ears at times still going up, um, but I thought, uh, yeah, it was, didn't seem too alarming at first. Um, then a couple minutes into cloud flying, and then I was like, "Oh my god, I'm going to fly through the area of lift," and I'm following my GPS track. I basically can't get down. I thought about, you know, flying back the way I came, but it didn't make a lot of sense to me at the time because I just flew through this area of lift, and so why would I, you know, turn around and fly back through that area of lift? I, yeah, I mean, at that point I should have, I certainly should have headed south much, much earlier. But, um, yeah, so anyway, at
This point, are you doing anything stronger evasively? Are you spiraling, or you're still just, uh, basically trying to fly straight? It's hard to fly straight. I was just
Trying to fly straight to get out of the the area of lift was what I was thinking, and then yeah, then it started to rain on me, which you know, turned to to sleet and hail quickly. And then I, so I tried to head south then, and I, at that point, it was really, it was, I couldn't even maintain big ears, it was just too strong. And then I couldn't even maintain speed, bar just got very, very rough, and my GPS cut out, and I had a magnetic compass that was just spinning back and forth, and I really tried to maintain a south heading, but at that point, the variable started screaming, and I just lost control of the glider, and it's just, yeah, incredibly strong and violent, and just up, up, up, um, yeah. And it's, uh, I mean, it, it was just amazingly chaotic in the cloud. It was dark and noisy, um, yeah.
There was, there's thunderclaps, and, uh, I, I think I looped the glider at one point, and just, it was, you know, my lines were twisted on and off, I untwisted, but like, it was just, it was just crazy. I was, I was amazed that the glider was still flying, it was just so violent. I was kind of... I remember when I, I looped, I was sort of hoping I was going to get gift wraps that I could like fall out of the cloud and then throw my reserve. But, uh, I was thinking about all sorts of options. I'm like, you know, do I toss my reserve? That's not going to help, it's just going to tear my harness apart. My hands were quite frozen at this point. I was already up, you know, several thousand feet and, um, and I was thinking of using my hook knife to cut my lines, but you know, you'd be cutting one line at a time or something. It would be, you know, disastrous for a period of time. I wasn't really sure what to do.
I mean, it was... it was too late. I realized like I had already made all the poor decisions to get to the situation and, and yeah, it was just, uh, it was just so violent and, um, yeah, I was... yeah, I just, just felt sad and just had regrets and, yeah.
Was it? What was there? Was there? It sounded like, you know, when you got to this point of just, "Wow, I'm gonna die," uh, and kind of resign to it. Was that on the back side of just pure panic for a long time? I mean, you think your brain was just, uh, I when I've been in cloud and that, not that kind of situation, but I've been in cloud, there's this, there's this period of, "Holy shit, I can't do anything," I, I, and it's, it, it's very scary, yeah.
I surprisingly, there wasn't a lot of panic. I just, it was kind of a gradual transition to this, like, state of helplessness and I, I just realized there was absolutely nothing I could do. I mean, honestly, it didn't matter if I was had my hands on the brakes or not, I had no control of my glider. Um, there was really nothing I could do and so I just, uh, and yeah, for some reason I'm sure I was in some sort of spiral because just the G-force is kind of like, you know, with my head out, right? And all the blood rushing to my head and it was just so hard to sit forward and I realized now I should have tried harder to like sit forward in my harness. That would have spared me a lot of the kind of the negative G injuries that I received, like the retinal hemorrhages and stuff, and I probably wouldn't have blacked out too, so I would have been able to throw my reserve, you know, after coming out the top, but
pause here
For a second, for those who haven't read, what—what are the—what injuries are you talking about? Because I read about the retinal thing, but you were also pretty beat up. Was that from the flying, or is that from the landing in the trees?
Yeah, that's a good question. I, I think it was the flying in the harness, like I've got a couple broken ribs on the right side and I'm pretty sure that was just the harness. I, I broke my neck pretty good. I had unstable fractures of C4, C5, which I actually found out several days later, and that could have been really just from the flying, honestly. Like it was, a probably a
violent hyper
extension injury, and yeah, um, god, yeah, I was just, yeah, I mean, I think my friend had like, looking at my track log and commented at one point, "It was 23 meters per second up," and I just, yeah, just felt impossibly powerful to do anything about, um, yeah, I think that's a good what
Speed is that, that's over 60k an hour, and it went, "What are you, what are you going up at?" There, 70k an hour. Holy cow, that's incredible. The only time I've ever heard of anything even close to that was, uh, the Superfinal down in Columbia. Chrigel and Yasin and a bunch of people in the league gaggle went into a fire on purpose. It had been clouded out, shaded out for a long time, and you know, from flying Columbia, they start, you know, they burn those fields, the sugarcane fields, and you know, the pyrocumulus. And this thing was a couple thousand feet over cloud base. It was, I mean, this thing was, was a ripping fire. It wasn't one of these gentle fires; it was booming. And, uh, Chrigel went into this thing a couple thousand feet off the ground and, you know, had to full stall or macro stall three times just to gain control of the glider, but he was going up at 20 meters a second.
This is the only time I've ever heard somebody, you know, Yasin ended up having to throw his reserve because he got so many twists in his glider. It was a rope Uh, you know, that's a really violent climb. 23 meters? I've never heard of that. That's gross.
Impressive, he could maintain control. You know, at 20 meters a second, that's awesome. People that saw it...
My friend and neighbor, Matt Bieschner, was right behind him, planning on doing the same thing, and he saw him go in there and explode three times and went, "Yep, no, I'm not going in here." I mean, it was one of these just black thermals, you know, that with stuff on fire, and it was ludicrously dangerous maneuver, but uh, but yeah, but apparently he had to stall three times just to hold on to the thing, yeah.
And I probably should have tried something like, you know, full stalls and stuff. I just, uh, yeah, well...
I mean, interesting. I so I've asked about this several years ago. I was contemplating, and what, what happens if you get sucked up in a cloud? And what about just full stalling out of it? And turns out, it's not nearly fast enough of a descent to do anything, so it's just basically putting your wing in a more unstable state than you already were. So, in other words, it wouldn't do very much. You know that the initial stall, you'd maybe fall a little bit, and then you're just, you're still just a hoover, you're still just going to go up. So that's what people who know more than I do have said. Anyway, but you know, you're not coming down that fast in a full stall, you know, in a deep stall configuration, because there's so much fabric still over your head, yeah.
And that's what it felt like. It felt like there was nothing I could do to stop the the ascent. It was just, just up, up, up for sure. Um, yeah, did
You have a drogue, by any chance? No, no, I don't. Yeah, not that—that your hands were frozen, not that that would have done much either, but you said you were, you felt like you were in a—and I haven't looked that closely at your track log, but you said you, you felt like you were in a really strong spiral for a bit. Did you have—was your wing open? Did you have a big cravat? Or it was a big cravat? Or did you have a big cravat? Was that just, uh, or was that something you were trying to do? No.
It wasn't purposeful, I think. My lines were probably mostly twisted at that point, anyway. And no, the wing seemed like it was mostly open, like it was collapsing all the time and then reopening and jumping around everywhere. But, uh, just, uh, to be able to not have me sit up in my harness, it was just a lot of negative G's, like, and it must have come from a spiral of some kind. Okay, um, yeah, God.
You know what would be fascinating is take a look at your lines. You know, it'd be fascinating to measure your wings. And you know what would be fascinating is take a look at your lines and it would be now at this stage and see how much it's stretched. And I mean, because to get soaked and then all those G forces, it'd be more interesting to look at those numbers, yeah.
I mean, I paid somebody to retrieve the wing from the forest. I didn't want to litter, obviously, in the jungle, and so, um, and then I chatted with a local guide and he thought it was actually repairable. Like, the the leading edge was pretty trashed. Actually, there's lots of, you know, rips and tears all along the underside of the leading edge, but, uh, no, he said I should bring it to the local kind of fixer guru and, uh, um, yeah, so my I left with my friend in beer and he brought it to him and he's he's actually, I think, fixing it up right now, and so he's gonna really measure all the lines and we'll we'll see what comes of it
Wow, interesting. Okay, well, back to the—back to the episode. So you're getting slaughtered, uh, and then I understand at one point you pass out.
Yeah, I remember seeing 22,000 feet on my vario, and then it like kind of iced over and it didn't see anything else, and I had to actually take my goggles off. I had to slip them down because I—they were just ice, I couldn't see a thing. Not that it actually mattered, it didn't matter to see. I should have left my goggles on; it would have saved me some, some injury there. Um, yeah, and so it was just up, up, up, and then basically I just the injury
to your eyes was from the cold, uh
Yeah, I had a corneal injury on on my left eye, which is either from frostbite or maybe from hail; like, there was lots of like ice flying around in the storm, and so it could have been either of those things. I mean, it could have been frostbite or maybe from hail, and so it could be foliage on the way down too, I suppose. Um, yeah, but uh, that that was pretty minor, and I thought that was the reason for my loss of vision in that eye, but it was actually like bleeding in the back of the eye. Oh, well, we can get to the injuries, I guess. Um, yeah, yeah, and so I just, yeah, I just, I basically just hung there, and I just, uh, yeah, thought of my family, and it was just so sad that I was leaving them, and yeah, it's gonna be—I have two small kids, and you know, just, yeah, I just, uh, one and three, oh.
Really young, yeah. How much does your... your background in medicine, how much was that in your head? Were you thinking things that probably people that aren't doctors weren't thinking, aren't thinking that kind of situation probably?
When I came to, I kind of, you know, was trying to figure out why I couldn't see, and I was trying to assess, you know, why I was in so much pain and what was broken, what wasn't. Um, but I in the cloud, I, I wasn't really thinking about anything, you know? I was just, uh, yeah, yeah, it was just... I remember reaching up to like turn on my GoPro to like record the final moments, um, and I actually had been recording the whole time, so I heard it like turn off, and so I think I tried to turn it back on, but my fingers were entirely numb. I didn't actually hear the the beeps that it came on again, but it was so noisy in the storm. It, yeah, so it'd be really interesting to see that footage.
smashed on on the way down, and then probably had water damage from, you know, the storm and also the river I had to kind of climb through to get out. And, uh, and so the the cards damaged, I'm kind of mailing it off in the next couple days here to try and get some professional
To fix, how did it get smashed? The camera was that on the walk out, or when you landed in the trees? I
think the trees, yeah. Like, I got very lucky, you know? It's two inches above my face, and uh, it was smashed off my helmet. The screen was shattered, and the uh, like, a little side latch was broken open, and um, and my, my face was fine. My helmet was otherwise fine. Okay, do
You do, you know the the damage done in air versus ground? Do you know what? Because I, as I understand it, you were out until you woke up in the trees, right? You, you passed out at somewhere 22,000 and then you didn't wake up until you were on the ground. Yeah, that's right.
So I saw 22,000 and then I passed out a little while later, so I probably passed out right at the climb. I only went to 24,300 or something, yeah. And so I was, I was basically just out there, and I don't think it was from hypoxia; I think it was just from these negative G's, right? All the blood rushing to your brain, yeah. And I was out, I was out on the whole descent, and looking at the track log, it was basically just fell out of the sky. I was straight down at 15,18 meters per second, right to the trees. I don't know why I don't
What, what, what's your—what are your thoughts? There were—you were—you in the down flush from the like a microburst type of thing that's, or your wing was just a rope? Yeah.
I'm sure it was massive sink, uh, the wing was soaking wet and maybe full of ice, like a, you know, I, I have no idea. It could have been collapsed or partially collapsed; it could have been in a spiral, I guess, um...
That's probably a good thing you were
unconscious
Yeah, I mean, I would have thrown my reserve and that
would have been better, yeah.
but then I would have like landed further out and and even if I landed probably 500 meters out, I wouldn't have been able to make it to the hill to call for help. Like, it I was just so lucky the way it all worked out, and I hit these trees going at 18 meters per second and had a relatively, I think you know, soft landing, all things considered. And I mean, did you hit the ground, break my neck? I'm not sure. I was, uh, about a meter off the ground when I came to. Good God, just sitting there in my harness in this hailstorm and, uh, yeah, so I had this like access to my quick pack bag, so I just covered myself and
So I just kind of blew on my hands for like half an hour, trying to warm them up under my little tarp, okay?
What? What were the go through the list of injuries? Sure.
Yeah, so um, when I came to, like, um, I was, yeah, just shocked I was alive still. I was kind of, it took me a little while to come to. Um, my left eye was, was essentially blind; I couldn't see a thing, couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I thought that was from a corneal injury, but the corneal injury actually healed up over a few days and I still couldn't see very well, so it was actually just from a vitreous hemorrhage, so blood in the, the back chamber of the eye. And then my right eye, um, I couldn't see this large chunk, this well-defined, you know, large blob and in the central vision, so that's a retinal hemorrhage. But otherwise, I could see around the outside and that was clear still, so I was lucky to have that kind of part of my vision clear; that probably saved me.
Um, I had bitten into my tongue really deep, and that actually ended up being a really kind of annoying injury. Uh, so like, I think I use my tongue as a mouth guard; like, I basically bit right through. I think I chipped my teeth in my tongue. Um, yeah. And, uh, what else is going on? Yeah, so I, uh, um, I separated my left, my, um, my corneal clavicular joint, my AC joint. Uh, I definitely have a couple broken ribs on the right side. I, I ended up with, yeah, an unstable C4, C5 neck fracture. I didn't know that at the time. I thought my spine was relatively good, and it was just kind of all muscular, you know, pain that I was experiencing.
What else? I think that's, uh, and my hands just frozen and just not useful at all. And then they actually ended up being kind of—they're still burning and painful and numb even now, two weeks later, right? So, well...
I bet you won't get some of that back for months, yeah.
It'll be a while, I think, but how many every day is a little better, hopefully. And yeah, my vision's almost frostbite. No, no frostbite, it was a moist freezing injury, so not a—not a dry freezing. So, so, and no frostbite on your face? Nope, nothing there. Maybe my—my left cornea might have had frostbite damage, but I had some antibiotic drops and I just used kind of to recover, like you know, and within three days the corneal injury, whatever it was, was kind of resolved. Any
of these injuries, I guess, especially to your eye, long-term consequence. I mean, the fractures in your neck will be fine, right? Yeah,
Yeah, I just, uh, hard collar for for a couple of months, and that should be, hopefully, totally fine. The, um, yeah, the retina, I went and saw an ophthalmologist in Vancouver, you know, a few days ago, and I actually, I'm gonna see a an optometrist tomorrow just for a follow-up. Uh, when I saw the ophthalmologist, my my right eye was too full of blood for them to see the retina. Uh, it's kind of thinned out a little bit now, so hopefully you'll get some pictures at the back, but I, yeah, I have all these retinal hemorrhages on the left side, and I guess there's a risk of like the retina tearing, and the retina doesn't heal very well.
But, uh, I think I mean, my left eye seems great now, so I'm kind of hopeful that there's no permanent eye damage at all. And the right eye is still clearing; it's kind of interesting. So that, right, I had that central blob of vision loss, so that retinal hemorrhage, which is like a blood blister on your retina, and I'm really lucky that didn't burst and create a vitreous hemorrhage, like leak into the back chamber of the eye. Otherwise, I would have been blind on, on waking up there. But a few days later, like when I was feeling a little better, like I think on day four, um, I was, uh, just kind of repacking my reserve, actually, and, and I just saw this little, just like well-defined blob just kind of spring a little leak. So this tiny little wisp of blood just kind of started coming from it, and I just watched it like drain itself, you know, into the back chamber of my eye over the next, like, a couple hours.
And I went, I was meeting a friend for a mango shake at this, our local LZ, you know, cafe, and, and just by the second mango shake, I was, I was blind.
basically so
It went from being that my good eye, except for this like central chunk of of this red, well-defined blob, to totally blind in that eye like within an hour or two.
Yeah, spooky, man. The spooky doesn't stop when you even when you're in the thundercloud. As you think it wouldn't get any scarier than that, but yeah.
but luckily, my left eye had sort of, um, the blood had been resorbed slowly, and so my left eye was at least, uh, somewhat usable by the time, you know, this, this happened. And so I was, wasn't entirely blind at that point, but my, my vision definitely took a nosedive on, on day four. There appealing, I
wonder if you would have come to still in flight if the sink wasn't so dramatic. I mean, it was... was that... was that like the G's that put you out, or just lack of oxygen? I think it was G, like I don't
know if I'm not a pro on, you know, high altitude medicine or whatever, but I think it was most likely the g's. It didn't seem, you know, especially if you're just sitting there in a like 24,000 feet, doesn't seem overly high to. I was only up there fairly briefly, right? Um, right.
yeah i
would I, would think it would be the
G's, were you flying with those? Was
I flying with what? Sorry.
oxygen oh
No, I've never, never flown with oxygen, yeah.
Okay, uh, was this where had you gone over the back much on this trip, or you just flying the front range, uh?
Just the front range. Yeah, we—we were the three of us, you know, that came to be here together. We're all kind of hesitant to fly. I didn't have the proper kind of GPS equipment and like, you know, I—I had a spot device or inReach, I didn't have that all set up, and so I was—I was leery to go anywhere where I couldn't, uh, you know, self-extract. Okay, so you didn't have an inReach? No, no, I didn't. Definitely would next time. Yeah, the problem is they kept stealing the inReaches, like the Indian, you know, or the airlines, or whoever kept like, you know, everyone's was posting that their—their Varios and satellite devices were at, uh, yeah.
customs. Or, well, I think the the main message that needs to get out to people going there, that you know it, it's such an incredible place to fly, and it's it's so kind of accessible that I think people lose track of the fact that you really are in a self-rescue situation there. You know, you can't call, you know, helicopters want to be in advance, yeah? You know, things like insurance take time. Uh, you know, I I think that people are not flying there with nearly enough margin. You know, you have to take it, and that's that's easy to do when you're on launch with 300 people.
It just there's there's a feeling of safety there that really doesn't exist. It, you know, it's it's it's a place that rescue is tough, it's time-consuming, uh, it relies on the community. more than the, you know, search and rescue or the helicopters. I mean, they have them there, but every time I've been involved there remotely, you know that none of this happened when I was there, thankfully. But when I've been involved in rescues there remotely, because I'm the one that gets the call when people have global rescue and this kind of thing, and it's just, you know, it's, it's not straightforward. I mean, you're not in the Alps, yeah.
Just a couple weeks ago, somebody waited for three days for a helicopter that was a broken back, and they were just in a super accessible, uh, you know, the golf course. It's like clearing a couple of ridges over from launch, and the helicopter just, I guess, had to work things out with the insurance company, and it took them, you know, over 48 hours to figure this out, yeah.
And I think this just, uh, you know, and then there's the InReach thing, uh, that they don't want you using them, and satellite trackers, and that kind of—I mean, I think, I think you just, you have to pile all this on before you step off the hill and really understand. And I'm not telling you, I'm just saying, and general, for the general knowledge is, I, I think, I think it seems like the approach is too lax in beer. I mean, it's, it's, it's big stuff. And, and again, like that false sense of security of flying that front range, uh, you know, you're, you're proof positive that it's still big, still the Himalayas.
Yeah, I would definitely go back with the proper, you know, satellite equipment. Like, I, I didn't really know enough about it to be honest, or anything honestly. Like, this, this whole mesh tack, mesh tastic devices, there's all sorts of sort of newer messaging options, and I have very limited knowledge and all that stuff, but I would definitely gear up before I went back to fly there, for sure you
said, "You have a one and a three-year-old. What's the future? Can you predict? How do you think you're going to feel in the air? Uh, how's mama feel about Ben going flying?"
Um, yeah, I mean, we had some heated discussions a week or so ago, but uh, I mean, she'll be okay. I still want to fly; I'm not scared off flying. Um, yeah, I'll certainly, you know, I've definitely learned a hard lesson, and I'll definitely be far more cautious around clouds and even just considering storms and cloud suck. I wasn't, yeah, for some reason I wasn't even thinking that might even happen on my way back from Darmsall, like I don't, yeah, just an experience. So, yeah, definitely, definitely learned a few things for sure. But uh, no, I plan to, I'll probably go back to Beer and, you know, do some more stuff, and I'll be back in a few weeks. I'll be back in a few weeks, some more flying, and I mean, it's kind of a lovely place. The town's lovely, it's a nice place to, you know, have dinner and hang out, and flying's, you know, incredible if you can, if you can stay safe.
I understand, you know, so you—you land in the tree, you're a meter off the ground, you can't see, you're totally frozen. I take us from there, because I understand there was—there was quite a bit of luck involved with that whole side of things, too. Yeah,
Even just where I landed, like I was within, you know, accessible, um, range basically of like getting up to a hill where I could contact friends. Like I wasn't sort of way deep in the jungle, um, I again just being a meter above the ground, I was able to get out of my harness. I mean, definitely took some, some effort and some time with, you know, frozen fingers and just pain everywhere, yeah. And then just, I guess I packed stuff up and I was, uh, I wasn't really, I think I kind of made a poor decision then as well. I should have stayed high and then tried to kind of stay on the high terrain, and then I was able to get out of my harness and then loop around to where I was going to go. But I, I followed this like cascading river, you know, jungle river valley down, thinking I would come across a bridge or houses or a road, and just didn't seem like it was happening.
And it was like one little waterfall after the next, and I obviously could barely see, so I was just sliding down these big boulders into streams, and yeah, I was just soaking wet, and um, it was sketchy. Is it?
dark now? Is it nighttime? No,
No, I was, it was like I wouldn't be able to see anything the dark, and so there was just like this pressure for me to get somewhere before dark because I would just be totally useless, and I, I kind of figured I would, I might freeze to death. Like my, I had a thermometer and it's saying five or six degrees in the hailstorm like in the jungle, so it wasn't warm, and I was, uh, yeah, but, uh, you
left your wing, but you took your harness. What, what do you got with you? Yeah,
Yeah, I put everything in my bag. I took my harness, um, that's pretty much it. Luckily, my iPhone survived this whole thing because that made it show me where I was and where I needed to go, and so that was a... you know, there's a lot of things that fell into place for me to be able to get out. I didn't have any limb fractures, you know. I, I think a broken foot would have, would erect me for sure. Um, yeah, so I slid, or you know, crawled my way down this, this, this river valley, and then I finally found a, an access point where I could kind of climb up the ravine side, and it took a lot of effort and people
know you're in there at this point.
No, no, they hadn't heard from me, so they're—they're getting too worried because my friend was actually caught in the storm and he got rained on, had to go land, and two other gliders that were with them through the reserves because they went parachutal. So there was—there was definitely a carnage going on, and they—they hadn't heard from me all day, and so they were definitely worried something had happened, um. And so then I—I, yeah, I managed to get up onto this bluff and—and, uh, had cell reception and then just texted them. I just said, "Hey guys, I'm in trouble, yeah." And then, yeah, their first text back was like, "Where are you? We'll come get you."
Yeah, and you're kind of between... it looked like you were kind of between Dharamshala and beer, right? You're in that front range, yeah.
Yeah, I kind of flew back maybe a third of the way, I think. I was down below Hobbiton, the ridge Hobbiton, um, yeah. And, uh, I wasn't too far from civilization, like a, so I sat there. I put, I put my quick, you know, pack tarp over me again, just sitting there in the dark. It got dark now, and then I just couldn't walk anywhere. I couldn't see well enough. And I got my... headlamp out. I have a, you know, I carry a headlamp just for these situations, and the battery was dead, so I don't know if it turned on at some point, but with that, basically I was planning to walk in the dark, but I just, I couldn't do that with a headlamp. So, so I just sat there, and then there's, you know, somebody had organized a local family to come find me, and then two guys came with flashlights and basically held my hand and walked me back down to their house, which, you know, took about 20 minutes, and then they, yeah, just, uh, the mother of the family sat me down and rubbed hot water and oil on my arms and legs and just tried to warm them up, and it was just, yeah, it was so lovely.
I had all these like spines and splinters from all these plants, and she's like plucked them all out of my own hands and arms, and yeah, it was, it was great at
this point you communicated with family with your with home Did they know what was going on?
I sent Lindsay, yeah, my wife Lindsay a text. I didn't elaborate. I was just like, I, I, yeah, I just said, I think I, I'm down. I landed. out, I'm, you know, waiting for a ride back. I didn't want to kind of get into a conversation at that point, and with the time change, you know, it was like probably six in the morning for her and stuff, and she was in Halifax at a conference. Yeah, so I downplayed it for a day or two.
Have you ever been this close to sayonara before, um?
I mean, this was, yeah, I, I probably the closest. I mean, I think once in Belize, I was, uh, hiking up, climbed up a waterfall, and there was this like top pool, and it was like this, I don't know, probably 50, 60 foot waterfall onto rocks, and there's just, just really slippery rock bowl, and I remember kind of just, sort of getting close to it, and I slipped. I just like slid into this like top pool that was like pouring over this edge, and I just like got dragged towards this, this, you know, certain death, basically, and I remember just barely arresting myself, and then like, yeah, so it's like, I don't know, I don't know slimy, slippery rock, and just like, you know, scraping my way back to, back to safety there, and yeah, so I mean that was obviously very close as well, but no, it's probably tops
quicker and not so prolonged. I mean, this was a long period of—I mean, I'm sure in real time it wasn't that long, but still, you had—you had some time to think about this one, yeah.
I mean, it just feels like a bad dream to me now. I just the effort and agony that, like, it took me a couple hours to get from my harness to where I, you know, could contact friends. And that was just, it was just nothing but pain and just a lot of effort. keep telling myself, you know, I'm not going to survive that storm and then sort of die in the jungle. That's just not an option; I just gotta keep going.
Right, right, yeah. I'm not giving up now. Yeah, what was that feeling of resignation like? Do you remember it very clearly? Um, I
Do, yeah, like up in the cloud, I, um, yeah, like, like I said, there wasn't panic. It was just this, yeah, resignation. Exactly. I just felt like I'd made some very, very poor choices and, uh, I just really let my family down and, yeah, I just felt very bad that everyone's gonna have to go through all this, you know, sorrow and heartache and it's all my fault and all, for all, for nothing, yeah.
I don't know that this is a very good question because I, I think the, I, I think that we can all envision, you know, the where things went wrong and how you would do things differently. But were there any, you know, anything you're writing down at this stage or contemplating that, wow, that, what would you do differently that wasn't obvious? I guess maybe that's the question, uh
Yeah, good question. Let me just... flying, flying into the valley earlier, like at the first sign of, you know, kind of somewhat unreasonable cloud suck, you know, just, just get out of it. Be much more aggressive at trying to stay below the clouds, for sure. I just kind of let my GPS track; I felt fairly safe, kind of flying along in the same direction and slowly going up and just not
Recognizing the potential, that's right.
Yeah, I just didn't know, and I was kind of, yeah, I was leery to fly off into the valley because I just, I didn't know that area as well, and I, for some reason, felt safe near my old GPS tracks. Yeah, it was silly for sure, um...
But yeah, definitely turning, turning away from, you know, the the or the mountains earlier, just like landing out, you know, finding a spot to go to. And then I just kind of let it go, and then I just kind of let it land. If it's clearly unsafe weather conditions, or trying to fly around the storm, that would have been, yeah, definitely the one change you would have made has
There been any interesting, you know, social media can be a vicious place these days. Has there been any, you know, I just found you yesterday on, on Facebook, because I wasn't, you know, we hadn't connected before. I understand you haven't, you know, you weren't a listener of the podcast, so this was a name that popped up that I wasn't familiar with, so I had to kind of hunt you down. But there, so I haven't seen any of that stuff because I don't pay any attention to any of it. But has there been any weird blowback, or I don't know, "God, dude, that was so stupid," or everybody just thankful that you shared it?
Yeah, it's actually been remarkably supportive. Everyone's just sort of, you know, "get well soon" and "thanks for sharing." And I mean, there's... I... I think there was the odd comment on Facebook, "Oh, that's what you get for flying in clouds," and that's true, you know, no defense against that.
I got on that one, I guess, yeah, and
Uh, yeah, no, I, I honestly have spent a lot of time on that one, I guess. Yeah, and, uh, yeah, no, I, I honestly have generally positive experience. I, I mean, I haven't been searching on social media, really; it's just that X contest and people's comments, and yeah, it was kind of, it was sort of nice to read. It took me a few days to post this thing, and then a few days to discover private messages, and you know, and, and then to reply to some people and stuff. But, uh, yeah, no, I actually felt quite good just to get some support from random strangers, and yeah, overall it's sort of a positive thing. I'm
Still curious that it's, it's, it's pretty obvious that it's a positive thing, I think it's a positive thing, uh, that you'll, you'll keep flying. Was there ever any self-doubt about that? Obviously, you know, probably your wife and, uh, you know, kids are probably too young, there's rad years, they're psyched you're back. I probably don't really piece it together that much, but, um, yeah, talk more about just the, the desire to keep going after something like this.
Yeah, I think it sort of depended on my injuries. If I had lost, I was kind of worried about my left eye. I mean, after my corneal injury had healed up, I still had this like poor vision, so I was messaging with an ophthalmology friend of mine, you know, uh, and I was worried I was going to have some permanent vision loss. You know what was going on, I wasn't quite sure, and so that would have wrecked my flying. Obviously, you can't really fly with poor vision, so um, yeah, and uh, I was—I mean, other than that, I knew I was going to fly again. Like, that pair lighting has been a really fun thing; I've really enjoyed it the last few years, and I definitely would want to continue that. Obviously, it could, uh, yeah, push a little less and just take it easy, maybe, maybe just enjoy, you know, floating around a little more and stop trying to go for personal vests and
Yeah, just good luck. Yeah, that's a hard one. Uh, I'm curious about, you know, you flew 2009 to 2019, about a decade, and it doesn't sound, you know, you were kind of doing a couple flights a year, sounds like you didn't really grab you, and then suddenly it does. What was the, what was the switch there, uh?
Yeah, good question. So, I mean, I bought this old Buzz One, like we split it with a friend, and I bought this glider and harness and reserve, and we basically took turns flying initially. Um, yeah, I think I just wasn't... uh, there's other stuff going on at that time in my life. I was super busy, um, you know, medical stuff, residency, and and uh, I just uh, I don't think I was in the right spot just to get enough air time and just to certainly do it safely. Um, yeah. And so, so upgrading my wing and gear and getting a proper harness and and all that, and then, you know, planning some trips to Mexico and Colombia and kind of getting some some real air time, like some longer flights and not just sled runs and some proper thermaling, and buying a vario helped too.
I didn't have a vario until I don't know, 2021 or something. It's uh,
yeah and
So yeah, um, yeah, it's basically just the surface, you know, up until then. It certainly wasn't safe or proper. I ended up doing some courses, did some courses in Nepal, New Zealand, and, uh, yeah, that was certainly very helpful. How
Would you classify your approach to flying before this incident there? Uh, what I mean by that is, you know, do you think the outside world, looking in, would classify your approach as risky, as normal, as safe? As you know, if they could put a word on it, what would it be? Uh,
Well, I was contacted by a friend who I flew with in Colombia quite a bit, and he was just, you know, wishing me to get better sooner. And he's like, "Oh, I, you know, thought you were pretty conservative pilot," and, uh, so you know, I'm sure this was out of your control, but, uh, I think my friends in beer, I'm kind of... I was definitely more aggressive than them in terms of trying to push, push boundaries and distances, and I'm, yeah, I think for that, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, uh, I mean, some I have a, you know, super good pilot who's far more conservative. He's the guy who researched beer, and, you know, he just researches paragliding, everything, and he's very, very knowledgeable, and, uh, he's very, very conservative, and, and he says himself, he's like, "Ben, somewhere between me and you is the perfect paraglider." It's true, I think I'm, yeah.
Well said, you do. I mean, yeah, you—you want—you want some push, or you never get—get very good. But, you know, I think when you're out there long enough, you see enough things like this. And, like you said, hopefully—hopefully make mistakes. This wasn't totally cheap, but it was coming. Well, it's
relatively cheap, yeah. Even like, you know, I have this numbness and burning in my hand still, but it's—it's, I mean, it's nothing. I'm just so lucky, and I mean, I have a broken neck, but it's honestly, it's not a big deal.
You're a paraglider, everybody has one of those. Yeah, Ben, uh, yeah, I know it's hard to probably revisit the trauma, and I'm sure you've done it dozens and dozens and dozens of times, but thanks for sharing your story. It's a great one. Wow, I kind of have. Uh, I'm glad you're all right, bud. Yeah.
Well, thanks a lot for having me. It's been nice chatting with you. Yeah, yeah, thank you. If
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