My skydiving journey started many years ago when I was a toddler running around drop zones with my brothers and sisters like wild animals. As I got older it became my dream to become a skydiver just like my dad. We would talk all the time about my 18th birthday and my first jump, I can remember getting so excited at just the thought of it. Just after my 17th birthday, I was in a head on collision on a two lane doing 60 mph. I was ejected from the backseat of a Ford van through the windshield onto the asphalt and into a blackberry patch in a ditch. I immediately stood up and called 911. Out of the 9 people involved in the accident I was the only one to walk away.
I decided that I wouldn’t ever do any thing risky from that moment on. After the accident it took me over a year before I would ride in a car again. Two decades had passed by the time I did my first tandem. I ran into the son of one of my dad’s old skydiving buddies one night out drinking. Out of no where I say “ Hey, we should go skydiving like our dads did.” He said “let’s go as soon as the sun comes up”. The sun came up, we called Skydive City, then we called both our dads and we all drove out there together listening to all their old skydiving stories, rituals, superstitions, etc. I did my first tandem that day, second tandem the very next weekend, and then started aff the next weekend. I headed out to do my Cat C jump and the weather looked horrible the whole way out. When I got there it was sprinkling and dark clouds were moving in. I knew I wasn’t going to jump that day but decided to stay and hopefully learn something or meet new friends.
I saw a guy there on a Onewheel and I stopped and asked him a few questions about it. I asked him about battery life, distance, max speed, then he asked if I wanted to ride it, of course I said helllll yeah bro! He explained exactly how to start and stop and used a few analogies to help explain the basics of riding the device. With his explanations, I was ripping it up within just a few minutes! Little did I know that the weather was would clear up and the random guy giving riding lessons to me would be turn out to be my instructor at the drop zone that day. I thought about how I really lucked out getting an instructor that could teach me something completely new, to teach me something else completely new to me. Noah ended up being my instructor till my check dive and I finally got my stamp. I remember at times having lists of questions I had compiled during the week to ask him and thinking about how he sounded like a skydiving encyclopedia with such thorough explanations. He was a tremendous help in my finally following through with my dreams that started all those years ago with a tiny little shirtless dirty foot kid looking up at his hero coming down from the skies, his daddy.
Thanks Noah for everything you did for me and everything you do for others to help them succeed in reaching their dreams as well.
Elliot
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