I went tandem hang gliding near Columbus Ohio on June 26, 2010. It was a pretty cool experience. My brother and the instructor got me in the sling and suspended me in the air. Then the instructor got hooked-up in a sling next to mine. An ultralight plane towed us to 2,000 feet and we released the tow line. We soared around like a turkey vulture for about 15 minutes and landed on a grass runway. It was a cool thrill for $140. If you're interested the instructor/contact person is John Alden. His email is jalden55@hotmail.com You can see assorted videos of tandem hang gliding on YouTube to get an idea of what it's like.
Sometimes I'm thriving. Sometimes I'm barely surviving. And I have been skydiving...3x I might go again August 15 except I'm getting old. My vertebrae make lots of popping and crunching noises. The heavy jolt from chute deployment is probably not what a doctor would order. I've got a few more weeks to make up my mind... Until then I can always look back at this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHN92rb6oPk
It turns out that popping and crunching noise in my back was my vertebrae being eaten away by a bone infection. I finally figured out the problem when my T8-9 disc bulged and gave me another SCI. My leg spasms stopped after that and I knew it was spine related. At the ER they said I just had a UTI but I persisted and finally got an MRI later that showed spinal damage. The neuro doc decompressed my spine, removed two vertebrae, put a hollow metal spacer filled with synthetic bone in the gap, and bolted metal rods across six vertabrae to hold everything together. Anyhow, I think I'm done skydiving. On the brightside I got a promotion. I'm now a quad AND a para!
Registered: 03/31/04
Posts: 1889
Loc: where the wild roadrunners roa...
I have. Knew a guy back in the '70's who was a para. He did some damn fool thing (can't remember what) and broke his neck becoming a quad. Thus he was a para and a quad.
I had a 2nd sci. my 1st at C6-7 was from a damn fool thing. My 2nd at t8-9 was from an infection that collapsed my vertebrae. Now I just found out my rods pulled out of the bone. I have another round of surgery Dec 29. Oh boy!
one of my dreams is to go skydiving...
