My First Skydive Part I, Emerson’s Exit

Labour day weekend, 2010, I found myself in a car heading to Edmonton to skydive with Emerson.  It would be my first time setting foot on a dropzone.  He had not jumped since October of 2009, so we both felt butterflies in our stomach while driving the now familiar dirt road for the first time.  We approached the dropzone at Eden North  with excitement and nervousness.  In truth, I was more excited than nervous.  In the previous weeks leading up to our first adventure together, I had made a rule that I could be told nothing about skydiving.  He tried to get me to watch video clip after video clip, partly to fuel his own excitement but I would have none of it.  I wanted the first time I fell out of a plane to be a pure as possible if that makes any sense. 

I sat beside Emerson filling out waivers, wondering if I was really about to jump out of a plane.  He went off to get re certified prior to making his near 30^th jump while I was getting geared up by my tandem master.  I went for the whole package, video and pictures for what I thought at the time was going to be my only ever skydive, I mean who actually skydives more than once?   It was a cloudy fall day, and I remember shivering a bit from the cold while having my pre-skydive interview.  People kept asking me if I knew what I was to expect and if I was excited.  All I could answer, was that I had no idea what was about to happen, but that I was ready for it. 

The next few moments were a bit of blur.  I recall Emerson excitedly telling me that he was going to be on the same load as me (I will be completely honest, at that point I had no idea what a load was), and that he might be jumping out first.  He also mentioned that there was another guy who would be right beside him, with a similar skill level.   I could not honestly tell if Emerson was nervous or excited at that point.  Here I was climbing into a plane, about to be harnessed to a complete stranger, in a plane with a man I barely knew.  Also I was trying to remember if I had accidentally just called Emerson my boyfriend or not in the video that was just filmed. 

I got into the plane first, and Emerson was the last man in, which meant that he would in fact be the first man out of the plane.  As I looked around I saw the guy sitting beside Emerson, which I knew had to be the guy who had not jumped for a while, also the owner of the dropzone Lyal was on the packed plane all geared up and ready to jump with us.  Now by this point I was getting pretty excited.  I love plane rides, and I knew that I had absolutely nothing to do but enjoy the ride.  I was grinning from ear to ear, and there was Emerson, right across the plane, smiling from ear to ear as well.  The thought of “was this really happening” crossed my mind a couple of times during our climb to 12000 ft.

A few minutes later, that same thought crossed my mind but for a completely different reason.   When the door opened I vaguely knew that Emerson was to exit first.  Having never seen anyone jump out of a plane before I was watching with fascination.  And true to his style, he made a grand exit, well memorable at any rate.  As he went to step out of the plane he grabbed the bar overhead.  When he did so however, he quickly realized that he had grabbed the bar on the wrong side and actually caught his altimeter.  Yup, Emerson got caught up exiting the plane, my very first time skydiving and the guy that I was with gets caught.  I watched the guy next in line to him go white as a ghost.  Then as quickly as it had started Emerson just let go and fell off into the distance.  I barely had time to process before a few skydivers exited and the door to the plane closed.  I later learned that the plane was re-circling to get back into position prior the tandems exiting the plane.  At the time, I was just relieved that the air could warm up a little.