After two days at Universal Studios with Emma and our cousins, we made our way over to Skydive DeLand to meet one of my dearest friends, Tammy.  I met Tammy in 1992 when we were both living in Maryland and we'd stayed in touch after she moved Florida.

On every trip to Florida, I tried to make sure we saw each other. When Emma was little, Tammy watched her a few times so she wanted to come along with us.  In lieu of spending extra time at Universal Studios, Emma picked a lazy day at the drop zone.  A 12 year old that wants to be at a drop zone instead of a theme park....hmmmm....future skydiver?  Maybe :)

When we arrived at DeLand, the loads were turning with what looked like some foreign teams training.  A group of jumpers from China appeared to be practicing acts of bravery AKA low turns.  All the local fun jumpers had migrated over to Z-Hills for their huge Christmas Boogie.  We filled out our waivers.  No need for a drop zone briefing since we had been to DeLand the previous year.

Tammy showed up at the drop zone and we put ourselves on the next load which happened to be a PAC. Both Matt and I like the PAC because it climbs so fast. Prior to jumping, I explained low passes. Tammy moved to Florida before I stated skydiving. She didn't really know much about the sport. I showed her the "peas" and told her that I would be landing in them. She said, "You can do that?" I said that I'd try. It would be my first jump of the day and my first jump at DeLand since April of 2009, but I had more than 400 jumps and my accuracy had improved.

Emma was happy to see Tammy and was telling her about our trip to Universal.  She loved the Harry Potter section.  While we were at Universal, she also rode her first roller coaster - that experience was not as positive.  Tammy was surprised how much Emma had grown up.

They don't have a set landing pattern at DeLand - canopy pilots can do right or left hand patterns. I was a little nervous when I came in to land because I didn't want to disappoint Tammy.  I did land in the peas, but I ended up sliding in. Tammy was so excited.  Since she wasn't in a rush, we told her we were going to do a second jump.  We packed up our rigs, manifested, and geared up.  As we were walking to the plane, we turned to look at the people landing.  That's when we saw one of the jumpers hit the ground hard.  From our perspective, it looked like a low turn.  It was bad.  I ran back to manifest and asked to be removed from the load.

What happened next, made me proud of my daughter.  I started skydiving when Emma was 6. Over the years, she has been to many drop zones.  As a parent, it was my responsibility to make sure she was prepared for experiencing a bad or fatal landing.  When I approached Tammy and Emma, Tammy was shaking and had tears in her eyes.  The jumper stuck the ground not far from the deck where they were watching.  Emma was trying to calm Tammy down.  "Did you see the size of that canopy?  My mom's canopy is much bigger.  And my mom makes her turns way up in the sky where it's safe."  She was calm and collected.

One of the local jumpers came over to talk to us.  She said that it's like seeing an accident where someone ran a red light.  Mistakes happen and people pay the price.  In this case, the female jumper from China was in a coma.  She had two broken femurs and a broken jaw.  What looked like a low turn from our perspective, was a bad toggle grab after "front risering."  Months later, I tried to find out of the jumper was still alive, but I couldn't find anything about her.