Posted on 09/12/2002 5:37:58 AM PDT by robertpaulsen
A skydiving instructor who died in July while attempting to land on a pond at Skydive Chicago in Ottawa was seriously impaired by smoking marijuana within two hours of his death, according to a toxicology report released Wednesday.
The report was made public an at inquest conducted by LaSalle County Coroner Jody Bernard into the death of Ronald Passmore Jr., 33, who died July 14 when he slammed chest first into the pond at the jump zone and died of a severed aorta. A coroner's jury declared the death accidental.
Passmore's death was the sixth in a year at Skydive Chicago, a fatality rate eight times higher than the national average. He was the second instructor to die there this year and the second fatality since July 2001 in which drugs were found in the victim's system.
The toxicology report, prepared by St. Louis University Hospital laboratory officials, showed Passmore's blood had a cannabis level about double that at which a person is considered impaired, according to laboratory director Dr. Christopher Long.
"This (level in Passmore's blood) demonstrates relatively acute smoking within the last couple of hours before his death," said Long. This is serious impairment due to marijuana--cannabis--that would affect everything you could possibly use to skydive, particularly reaction time and depth perception."
Efforts to reach Roger Nelson, operator of the Skydive Chicago, and Chris Needels, head of the U.S. Parachute Association, were unsuccessful.
Needels was present at the jump zone for a USPA board of directors meeting on the day that Passmore and two other skydivers jumped from a plane with high-performance parachutes to perform a landing known as "pond swooping."
The landing is a difficult maneuver in which a skydiver skims across the water, much like a water-skier, and then walks ashore. On that day, word had been passed that the three planned to swoop the tiny swimming pond at the dive zone and a small crowd had gathered.
According to one observer, the first skydiver managed the maneuver successfully, but the second stalled into the water. Passmore was the final diver and as he came in, he made a sharp hook turn and pancaked onto the water, severing his aorta and causing numerous other internal injuries, according to the autopsy report.
After Passmore's death, Nelson said he banned pond swooping at the jump zone.
Passmore, a veteran of more than 1,300 jumps, had been living at the campground that is part of the Skydive Chicago compound and was working as an instructor for Nelson. Instructors are paid a fee, usually about $25, to accompany students who are taking up the sport. Skydive Chicago is one of the busiest drop zones in the Midwest with about 75,000 jumps a year.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
I found this interesting. Some DZ's are more lax on safety, and collect a more "extreme" crowd. (As if jumping isn't enough fun) Wilder and cooler than thou tends to feed on itself. The place I jumped in the early 80's was sort of "family" oriented and hadn't had a fatality in about 15 years. In another part of the state was the "badass" bunch, and they were always getting busted up.
Experience breeds familiarity, familiarity breeds contempt, and gravity is exceedingly patient.
So does that mean that our military paratroopers are fools?
I doubt you'll get anyone defending this idiot, any more than we saw any "alcohol is food" arguments on the drunken airline pilots threads.
"Dude, at least he died doin' what he loves to do. Get high."
Watch it, now! My brothers in the XVIII Airborne Corp will fall out the sky on you!
;-)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.