Latest / Crime and Horror / Instructor-decides-their-FATE-DISTRESSING-CONTENT

Transcript

Instructor-decides-their-FATE-DISTRESSING-CONTENT · Crime and Horror

0:06
Speaker 1: Today's story is a skydiving disaster story. However, it does
0:10
Speaker 1: not go the way you think it will, and at
0:13
Speaker 1: the end of today's video there is a very special
0:16
Speaker 1: call to action that is connected to the main story
0:19
Speaker 1: that I think many of you will be very excited
0:22
Speaker 1: to participate in.
0:23
Speaker 2: But no pressure. However, before we get into that story.
0:27
Speaker 1: If you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious
0:29
Speaker 1: delivered in story format, then you come to the right place,
0:32
Speaker 1: because that's all we do, and we upload once a week.
0:35
Speaker 1: So if that's of interest to you, please sneak in
0:38
Speaker 1: to the like button's house and swap out their cat
0:41
Speaker 1: for an identical looking cat. Also, please subscribe to our
0:44
Speaker 1: channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss
0:47
Speaker 1: any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story.
1:04
Speaker 1: On the morning of August first, two thousand and nine,
1:07
Speaker 1: forty four year old skydiving instructor David Hartstock pulled into
1:11
Speaker 1: the parking lot of Skydive Houston in Texas and then
1:15
Speaker 1: made his way inside. A few minutes later, and Dave,
1:18
Speaker 1: like the rest of his colleagues, was hard at work
1:20
Speaker 1: getting ready for the day before the facility opened up
1:23
Speaker 1: and the inevitable weekend rush began. Skydive Houston is actually
1:28
Speaker 1: just a private airport and it's not really in Houston.
1:31
Speaker 1: It's located about thirty miles to the northwest of Houston
1:35
Speaker 1: in a city called Waller. The main facility of Skydive
1:38
Speaker 1: Houston is situated right up against this huge open airfield
1:43
Speaker 1: that basically looks like a big green grass field, and
1:46
Speaker 1: the main facility itself is comprised of several large buildings,
1:50
Speaker 1: one of which is a huge hangar that contains the
1:53
Speaker 1: super twin Otter airplanes, which are the little aircraft that
1:56
Speaker 1: bring the skydivers up so they can jump out. Because
2:00
Speaker 1: Idive Houston offers something called tandem jumping, it gets a
2:03
Speaker 1: lot of first time jumpers. Tandem jumping is when a
2:07
Speaker 1: skydiving student attaches to the front of their instructor. Literally
2:11
Speaker 1: they're buckled onto them, and then the two of them
2:13
Speaker 1: leap out of the plane together with the student never
2:17
Speaker 1: detaching from the instructor. This method allows the student to
2:20
Speaker 1: just kind of go along for the ride and have
2:23
Speaker 1: no responsibility while the instructor who's attached to them does everything.
2:27
Speaker 1: They make sure they're both stable in the air. They're
2:30
Speaker 1: the ones that pull the ripcord to deploy the shoot,
2:32
Speaker 1: they're the ones that land them safely on the ground,
2:35
Speaker 1: and so obviously tandem jumping really appeals to first time jumpers.
2:40
Speaker 1: Dave had finished his three year long training course to
2:43
Speaker 1: become a certified skydiving instructor just a few months earlier,
2:47
Speaker 1: but even prior to going through this course, Dave was
2:50
Speaker 1: already a very experienced skydiver, with over eight hundred jumps
2:55
Speaker 1: to his credit. And the reason he had so many
2:58
Speaker 1: jumps is because Dave loved skydiving. It had given his
3:02
Speaker 1: life a focus that really nothing else ever had. Dave
3:06
Speaker 1: had always been a kind of average guy. He lived
3:08
Speaker 1: in a very modest house in a suburb of Houston,
3:11
Speaker 1: and for much of his life he had worked very
3:14
Speaker 1: normal blue collar jobs, like he had been a cook
3:17
Speaker 1: at two different chain restaurants, he had managed a grocery store,
3:21
Speaker 1: and he also had worked at a soda bottling plant.
3:23
Speaker 1: Dave was divorced and had no kids, but he had
3:26
Speaker 1: a really good group of friends who liked to go
3:28
Speaker 1: to bars and go bowling and play darts. And while
3:31
Speaker 1: Dave was never really unhappy with the way his life
3:34
Speaker 1: was going. As he started to creep into his forties,
3:38
Speaker 1: he couldn't help but think, you know, I haven't really
3:40
Speaker 1: done anything big or important in my life. And so
3:44
Speaker 1: in two thousand and four, not long after Dave got divorced,
3:47
Speaker 1: one of his good friends asked him if he wanted
3:50
Speaker 1: to go skydiving with him to celebrate that friend's fortieth birthday.
3:53
Speaker 1: And Dave immediately thought to himself, this is it. This
3:57
Speaker 1: is a chance to do something big with my life.
4:00
Speaker 2: And so he told the friend, yes, I'd love to go.
4:02
Speaker 1: And after that first jump that Dave did with his friend,
4:06
Speaker 1: Dave was hooked. Whenever Dave was falling through the sky
4:10
Speaker 1: at over one hundred miles per hour, it was like
4:12
Speaker 1: nothing else in the whole world even existed. Life became
4:16
Speaker 1: very simple and beautiful. The manager at Skydive Houston saw
4:20
Speaker 1: Dave come in every weekend for years to do all
4:23
Speaker 1: these jumps, and finally he just offered Dave a job,
4:27
Speaker 1: and so that was how Dave left the soda bottling
4:29
Speaker 1: plant to become a skydiving instructor. So August first, two
4:34
Speaker 1: thousand and nine was a Saturday, and Saturdays at Skydive
4:38
Speaker 1: Houston were incredibly busy with basically NonStop tandem jumps all day.
4:43
Speaker 1: Whenever Dave was not working, so he was jumping on
4:46
Speaker 1: his own. He would always pack his own parachute because,
4:50
Speaker 1: like many other skydivers, he liked to make sure it
4:53
Speaker 1: was done exactly right. But when Dave was working, especially
4:57
Speaker 1: on Saturdays when it was so crazy busy, he didn't
5:00
Speaker 1: have time to pack and repack his parachute after every
5:04
Speaker 1: single jump because he was constantly being sent up again
5:07
Speaker 1: and again and again to take another student, and so
5:10
Speaker 1: instead he would take one of the pre packed parachutes
5:13
Speaker 1: that were left out for instructors inside of their clubhouse.
5:16
Speaker 1: That particular Saturday in August of two thousand and nine
5:19
Speaker 1: went very quickly, with Dave going up one after another
5:22
Speaker 1: with different students and jumping out and pulling the shoot
5:25
Speaker 1: and landing safely over and over again. And then finally
5:29
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, right around four o'clock,
5:31
Speaker 1: when Dave was getting ready to be done for the day,
5:33
Speaker 1: his manager came up to him and said, hey, do
5:36
Speaker 1: you mind doing one more tandem jump? And even though
5:39
Speaker 1: Dave was really exhausted, he's dripping sweat at super hot outside,
5:43
Speaker 1: he'd done six jumps that day, which was a lot.
5:46
Speaker 2: He said, no problem.
5:52
Speaker 1: Well, it's that time of the year again, which means
5:55
Speaker 1: the big game is right around the corner. Right now,
5:58
Speaker 1: trillions of people are rushing to their local owl rees
6:02
Speaker 1: to get their myths on the perfect winged beasts for
6:04
Speaker 1: their game day Buffalo owl dip meanwhile, mean oh long,
6:08
Speaker 1: focus on what really counts on game day, and that's
6:11
Speaker 1: finger strength. Every day, for the past twenty decades, me
6:15
Speaker 1: and Lungy have been waking up at one am every
6:18
Speaker 1: day and putting our fingers through a grueling powerlifting routine
6:23
Speaker 1: so that on game day, when we fire up our
6:25
Speaker 1: gasolee powered cell phones and load up our draftings sportsbook
6:29
Speaker 1: app as soon as we see the best we like,
6:31
Speaker 1: our fingers are so jacked that when we tap on
6:34
Speaker 1: our screens, our fingers go through the phone. Now does
6:38
Speaker 1: that ruin the phone? Yes? Is it worth it? I
6:41
Speaker 1: don't know, but it jacks us up. Now does that
6:45
Speaker 1: ruin the phone?
6:46
Speaker 3: Yes?
6:49
Speaker 1: Now does that ruin the phone? Yes? But is it
6:52
Speaker 1: worth it? Probably not, But it gets me a lungey
6:56
Speaker 1: jacked up on game day.
6:57
Speaker 3: So if you want to be a betty behemoth like
7:01
Speaker 3: me and all lot. Then you better put that hooter
7:03
Speaker 3: back in the owlry and head to your local gym
7:06
Speaker 3: and start pumping some finger iron. Because this year, I'm
7:09
Speaker 3: teaming up with DraftKings to give all new customers a
7:13
Speaker 3: winning offer. All new customers have to do is sign
7:16
Speaker 3: up for DraftKings using my promo code mister Ballin, and
7:20
Speaker 3: then bet at least five dollars on the big Game
7:23
Speaker 3: and you will instantly receive an additional two hundred dollars
7:27
Speaker 3: in bonus bets.
7:28
Speaker 2: Yes, it really is that simple.
7:30
Speaker 1: New customers who bet five dollars on the Big Game
7:33
Speaker 1: will get two hundred extra dollars in bonus bets. Wondering
7:37
Speaker 1: what you could use that two hundred dollars in bonus
7:39
Speaker 1: bets on, you could try same game parlays, where you
7:42
Speaker 1: combine multiple bets from one game, like which team will
7:46
Speaker 1: have the most passing yards and which team will have
7:50
Speaker 1: the first touchdown.
7:51
Speaker 2: Of the night for even bigger winnings.
7:53
Speaker 1: If mobile sports betting is not yet available in your state,
7:56
Speaker 1: don't worry.
7:57
Speaker 2: You can still get in on the fun with Draft King's.
8:00
Speaker 1: Daily Fantasy download the DraftKings Sportsbook app. Now, new customers
8:04
Speaker 1: used promo code mister Balin and bet five dollars on
8:08
Speaker 1: the big game and get two hundred.
8:10
Speaker 2: Dollars instantly in bonus bets.
8:12
Speaker 1: Again, that's promo code, mister Balin, only at Draftking's Sportsbook.
8:17
Speaker 2: Okay, back to the story, and so the.
8:27
Speaker 1: Manager introduced Dave to a short, blonde woman who was
8:30
Speaker 1: visibly nervous named Shirley Diggert, who was there to celebrate
8:34
Speaker 1: her fifty fourth birthday by skydiving for the first time.
8:37
Speaker 1: Her husband, her son, and her three grandkids were also
8:41
Speaker 1: there to watch her from the ground and take pictures,
8:44
Speaker 1: and her other son, who was celebrating his thirtieth birthday,
8:47
Speaker 1: he too was going skydiving. As soon as Dave walked
8:50
Speaker 1: up to Shirley, he grinned and stuck out his hand,
8:53
Speaker 1: and he made the same kind of corny joke he
8:55
Speaker 1: always made with nervous first time jumpers, and that was,
8:59
Speaker 1: don't worry, going to be just fine. You're going to
9:01
Speaker 1: be strapped to me, and I'm not about to let
9:03
Speaker 1: anything happen to myself.
9:05
Speaker 2: And so Shirley laughed, and she did seem like she
9:08
Speaker 2: was a.
9:08
Speaker 1: Little bit at ease, and so Dave patted her on
9:10
Speaker 1: the shoulder, and then he walked over and he grabbed
9:12
Speaker 1: one of the pre packed parachutes off the wall. These
9:15
Speaker 1: huts actually contained two parachutes inside of the backpack. There
9:19
Speaker 1: was the main chute, which typically is the only chute
9:22
Speaker 1: that gets deployed on a jump, and then there was
9:25
Speaker 1: the reserve chute, which is a little bit smaller and
9:28
Speaker 1: is not normally used unless there's some sort of emergency
9:31
Speaker 1: where the main chute fails. After every jump. Because the
9:35
Speaker 1: main chute has been deployed, it gets repacked and stuffed
9:39
Speaker 1: back into the backpack. But the reserve chute, because it
9:42
Speaker 1: almost never gets deployed, just stays packed. And so Skydive Houston,
9:47
Speaker 1: like basically every other skydiving facility, has certified technicians come
9:51
Speaker 1: in periodically to test the reserve chutes inside of the
9:55
Speaker 1: bag to make sure they're still packed. Exactly right after
9:59
Speaker 1: grabbing the pre pa parachute off the wall, Dave walked
10:02
Speaker 1: back over to Shirley, who was now in the staging
10:04
Speaker 1: area putting on her flight suit. A flight suit is
10:07
Speaker 1: a single garment kind of looks like a big onesie
10:10
Speaker 1: for an adult, and so Dave walked over.
10:12
Speaker 2: He put the parachute.
10:13
Speaker 1: Down, he tugged and pulled on her flight suit to
10:15
Speaker 1: make sure it was good, and then after he was satisfied,
10:18
Speaker 1: he picked the parachute back up and he signaled to
10:20
Speaker 1: Shirley as well as Shirley's son, who was also skydiving,
10:24
Speaker 1: to follow him, and so the trio they left the
10:26
Speaker 1: staging area. They went outside right to the airfield where
10:29
Speaker 1: there was a super twin otter idling and other jumpers
10:32
Speaker 1: were climbing on board to go for a jump, and
10:35
Speaker 1: so Dave, Shirley, and Shirley's son got in line. They
10:37
Speaker 1: boarded the plane and a few minutes later they were airborne.
10:41
Speaker 1: As the plane slowly climbed up to thirteen thousand, five
10:44
Speaker 1: hundred feet, which is the jumping altitude. Shirley was sitting
10:47
Speaker 1: directly in front of Dave. They were on a bench
10:50
Speaker 1: seat on the back right of this little airplane, and
10:53
Speaker 1: Dave made a point of talking to Shirley and asking
10:55
Speaker 1: her where she was from and what she did to
10:57
Speaker 1: kind of ease her nerves. Shirley would tell Dave that
11:00
Speaker 1: this was not the kind of thing that she typically did.
11:03
Speaker 1: In fact, she told Dave that her other son, who
11:06
Speaker 1: was jumping with them, when he first decided he wanted
11:09
Speaker 1: to try skydiving a year earlier, she had desperately tried
11:13
Speaker 1: to talk him out of it, saying it was too dangerous.
11:15
Speaker 1: But recently Shirley and her husband had decided that they
11:19
Speaker 1: needed to be more adventurous. They lived in a quiet
11:22
Speaker 1: town in rural Texas, where Shirley was a mail carrier
11:25
Speaker 1: and her husband worked in a mine, and their lives
11:28
Speaker 1: were just kind of simple and very routine oriented and
11:31
Speaker 1: kind of boring. So when Shirley's son, who was skydiving
11:35
Speaker 1: with them that day, had asked Shirley to go skydiving
11:38
Speaker 1: on her fifty fourth birthday, she saw it as an
11:41
Speaker 1: opportunity to break the mold and do something adventurous, and
11:44
Speaker 1: so she said yes. And so Dave told Shirley about
11:47
Speaker 1: how he had discovered skydiving much the same way she had,
11:50
Speaker 1: and they really bonded over that. About twenty minutes after takeoff,
11:54
Speaker 1: all the tandem jumpers on the plane were now attached
11:57
Speaker 1: to their instructors, so Shirley was now buck on to Dave.
12:01
Speaker 1: And then when they reached thirteen five hundred feet the
12:04
Speaker 1: jumping altitude, one of the instructors slid open the side door.
12:08
Speaker 1: It was time to jump, and the first one who
12:10
Speaker 1: was jumping was Shirley's son, and so from all the
12:12
Speaker 1: way back in the plane, Shirley called out to her son,
12:15
Speaker 1: have a good jump, I'll see on the ground as
12:17
Speaker 1: her son kind of waddled to the edge of the
12:19
Speaker 1: door with his instructor, and the two of them jumped
12:21
Speaker 1: out and disappeared into the air below.
12:24
Speaker 2: Next up was Shirley.
12:25
Speaker 1: So Dave told Shirley very calmly to stand up, and
12:28
Speaker 1: so they did. They stood up right next to their bench,
12:31
Speaker 1: and then before they waddled towards the exit, Dave, for
12:34
Speaker 1: what felt like the millionth time, checked to make sure
12:36
Speaker 1: he really was securely fastened onto Shirley. And then Dave
12:40
Speaker 1: tapped his ripcord right behind him, kind of like muscle memory,
12:43
Speaker 1: reminding himself where to go. He tapped his knife on
12:46
Speaker 1: his shoulder, he kind of just felt his equipment, and then,
12:49
Speaker 1: feeling ready, he said, okay, Shirley, let's go, and then
12:51
Speaker 1: the two of them kind of waddled their way towards
12:53
Speaker 1: the front of the plane where that door was slid
12:55
Speaker 1: wide open, and then they turned so Shirley's feet were
12:59
Speaker 1: right on the edge basically looking out into the sky
13:02
Speaker 1: right outside, and so it's really loud, it's very windy,
13:05
Speaker 1: and Dave is right in Shirley's ear saying, Okay, I'm
13:07
Speaker 1: gonna count at three and we're gonna jump. And then
13:09
Speaker 1: Dave reached forward. He pulled Shirley's head back so she
13:12
Speaker 1: was looking up because he didn't want her to look
13:14
Speaker 1: down when they leapt out, because for some people that
13:17
Speaker 1: will cause them to panic when they see the ground.
13:19
Speaker 1: And so with Shirley's head back, Dave very calmly said one, two, three,
13:23
Speaker 1: and then very gracefully, the two of them jumped out.
13:26
Speaker 1: From the moment you jump out of a plane at
13:29
Speaker 1: thirteen five hundred feet until you touch the ground, it
13:33
Speaker 1: takes maybe two to three minutes, with about thirty seconds
13:36
Speaker 1: to a minute of actual free ball, but that two
13:39
Speaker 1: to three minutes is so intense it feels like it's
13:42
Speaker 1: twenty minutes long. And this was what Dave loved so
13:45
Speaker 1: much about skydiving, that intense presence. You feel that you're
13:49
Speaker 1: really in the moment. There's nothing else you can think about.
13:52
Speaker 1: It's just you careening through the sky towards the earth.
13:55
Speaker 1: It's incredible. Dave had actually had a number of close
13:58
Speaker 1: calls in his life. A few years earlier, he had
14:01
Speaker 1: been riding his motorcycle when somebody hit him in their
14:04
Speaker 1: car and he fractured his skull, and then not long
14:07
Speaker 1: after that accident, he was in another accident where he
14:11
Speaker 1: fractured his spine. And after each of those two accidents
14:14
Speaker 1: and a few others, the only thought in Dave's mind was, oh,
14:17
Speaker 1: my goodness, I hope I can skydive again. And miraculously
14:21
Speaker 1: he had been. He had made full recoveries, and he
14:24
Speaker 1: was back to skydiving each time, and so now whenever
14:27
Speaker 1: he jumped out of a plane, he just felt so lucky.
14:30
Speaker 1: The plan for that evening's jump was for Dave to
14:33
Speaker 1: rotate them three hundred and sixty degrees three separate times,
14:37
Speaker 1: so surely could get a full look down across Houston
14:41
Speaker 1: and all over Texas and just kind of see the
14:43
Speaker 1: world around her from so high up in the air.
14:45
Speaker 1: And then whenever Dave noticed that they were at five
14:48
Speaker 1: thousand feet using his wrist altimeter, which is basically like
14:51
Speaker 1: a watch that tells you how far you are from
14:53
Speaker 1: the ground, Dave would pull the ripcord the main shoot
14:56
Speaker 1: would deploy and they would float gently.
14:58
Speaker 2: Down to the ground.
15:00
Speaker 1: At first, that is how this jump went. After they
15:03
Speaker 1: exited the plane, they stabilized in the proper horizontal position,
15:07
Speaker 1: with Shirley in front, her stomach pointing toward the ground,
15:10
Speaker 1: and Dave obviously right behind her controlling the skydive. And
15:14
Speaker 1: then after a few seconds, Dave slightly changed his body
15:17
Speaker 1: position and began rotating them three hundred and sixty degrees,
15:21
Speaker 1: so Shirley could look down and see all the highways
15:23
Speaker 1: and cars and barns and houses and the city off
15:26
Speaker 1: in the distance.
15:27
Speaker 2: I mean, it's this spectacular view.
15:29
Speaker 1: And as you're falling through the sky, especially in the
15:32
Speaker 1: first few seconds of a jump, you can't tell that
15:35
Speaker 1: you're going super fast, but you're going over one hundred
15:38
Speaker 1: and twenty miles an hour, which is called terminal velocity.
15:42
Speaker 1: It's literally the fastest you can fall in the air,
15:45
Speaker 1: and so you're blazing towards the ground, but it almost
15:47
Speaker 1: feels like the air is pushing you back up. And
15:50
Speaker 1: so Shirley's having this incredible first time experience, just really
15:53
Speaker 1: taking it all in, and Dave, even though he had
15:56
Speaker 1: done this hundreds of times, was having a wonderful time
15:58
Speaker 1: as well. But Dave really was just focused on his
16:01
Speaker 1: altimeter because when they hit five thousand feet he needed.
16:04
Speaker 2: To pull the parachute.
16:05
Speaker 1: And so they're cruising along, Dave's checking his altimeter over
16:08
Speaker 1: and over again, and then finally he sees five thousand feet.
16:11
Speaker 1: He quickly looks around him to scan for any other jumpers.
16:14
Speaker 1: He's clear, and so he reached back and he pulled
16:17
Speaker 1: his ripchord handle for his main chute. Now, normally, when
16:21
Speaker 1: you deploy your main parachute, depending on what kind of
16:24
Speaker 1: parachute you're using, there's actually kind of a slow unfurling.
16:28
Speaker 1: It's not like suddenly the shoot is deployed and then
16:31
Speaker 1: you just stop. That would not work. You'd get destroyed
16:33
Speaker 1: every time you skydive. So the way it's packed is
16:36
Speaker 1: it kind of unfurls slowly and it's like a gradual
16:39
Speaker 1: slowing down. But after Dave has pulled the ripcord handle,
16:43
Speaker 1: there was an immediate yank of the parachute backpack up
16:46
Speaker 1: and away from him, and then from somewhere above him,
16:49
Speaker 1: he heard a loud popping sound. Now Dave had jumped
16:52
Speaker 1: enough times to know that this was not normal.
16:55
Speaker 2: There was a problem, and he would be right.
16:57
Speaker 1: The main parachute had deployed out of the back, but
17:01
Speaker 1: it got tangled on the way out, and so it
17:03
Speaker 1: did not inflate at all, and so as a result,
17:06
Speaker 1: it was not slowing them down at all. But worse
17:09
Speaker 1: than that was this tangled up parachute was still attached
17:12
Speaker 1: to them, and it kind of became like a sail,
17:15
Speaker 1: and it turned Dave and Shirley onto their sides and
17:18
Speaker 1: began whipping them around in something called a death spiral,
17:22
Speaker 1: where literally you're just spinning so unbelievably fast that normally
17:27
Speaker 1: jumpers will actually lose consciousness they're spinning so fast.
17:30
Speaker 2: But Dave, being a very experienced skydiver, he.
17:33
Speaker 1: Tried to stay calm. He tried to track his way
17:36
Speaker 1: out of this death spiral, which is when you put
17:38
Speaker 1: your arms and legs straight and try to go in
17:40
Speaker 1: a straight line through the air. But it didn't work.
17:43
Speaker 1: He just kept on spinning faster and faster. And at
17:45
Speaker 1: this point, surely she's practically losing consciousness. She's yelling what's
17:49
Speaker 1: going on, and Dave is just trying to stay calm.
17:51
Speaker 1: He's still trying to get out of it. But he
17:52
Speaker 1: knows there's no way, but Dave remembers he has two knives,
17:56
Speaker 1: and so he decides he's going to cut away this
17:59
Speaker 1: tangled main and then deploy his reserve chute, because you
18:03
Speaker 1: don't want to open your reserve directly into a tangled parachute.
18:07
Speaker 1: And so he reaches up. He's spinning. Remember, he reaches
18:10
Speaker 1: up and he grabs the first knife. However, the lines
18:13
Speaker 1: of the tangled parachute had actually tangled on his shoulder
18:17
Speaker 1: strap where that first knife was, and so he literally
18:20
Speaker 1: couldn't get to the knife. And so now they're below
18:23
Speaker 1: five thousand feet, they're like four thousand closing in on
18:26
Speaker 1: three thousand feet. I mean, they're coming close to the
18:28
Speaker 1: ground here, and they don't have a canopy. But Dave,
18:31
Speaker 1: he stays calm. They're spinning around. He can't get that
18:33
Speaker 1: first knife, and so he reaches for the second knife,
18:36
Speaker 1: which was placed in front of Shirley. But because of
18:39
Speaker 1: how quickly they were spinning, he couldn't quite get his
18:42
Speaker 1: arm out to grab the second knife. It was just
18:45
Speaker 1: impossible to grab it. And so without any other options,
18:49
Speaker 1: Dave had to pull his reserve chute, knowing it was
18:52
Speaker 1: going to go straight into this tangled mess right above them,
18:55
Speaker 1: and so the reserve chute, it deploys and it does work,
18:59
Speaker 1: at least at first. There's that gradual slowing down sensation
19:02
Speaker 1: that Dave immediately feels. Their spin begins to stop, and
19:06
Speaker 1: for a second it seems like they're going to be
19:08
Speaker 1: saved by this reserve chute, because by now they're only
19:11
Speaker 1: about two thousand feet from the ground. However, the worst
19:15
Speaker 1: case scenario happens to Dave and Shirley. As soon as
19:18
Speaker 1: their reserve choot was up over their head inflated, their
19:22
Speaker 1: main chute suddenly caught air and inflated as well, so
19:25
Speaker 1: they had two parachutes. Now, you can land with two
19:29
Speaker 1: parachutes absolutely. However, sometimes in a worst case scenario, the
19:34
Speaker 1: two parachutes will catch wind going in opposite directions, So
19:38
Speaker 1: basically the parachutes will go out to either side of
19:41
Speaker 1: the jumper or jumpers if it's tandem, and then you
19:44
Speaker 1: basically have wings that aim the jumpers straight at the ground.
19:48
Speaker 1: It's like an accelerant. It causes them to literally speed
19:51
Speaker 1: up straight towards the ground. And once you start moving
19:55
Speaker 1: in this position, which is known as a downplane, it's
19:58
Speaker 1: almost impossible to get out, because the faster you go,
20:01
Speaker 1: the more inflated these two parachutes become. And so Dave
20:05
Speaker 1: knows they are less than two thousand feet from the ground.
20:08
Speaker 1: They're in a downplane, which is almost always fatal, and
20:11
Speaker 1: so all he can do is try to get out
20:14
Speaker 1: of the downplane. And so Dave, with all his might,
20:17
Speaker 1: he begins yanking on the different lines of both parachutes,
20:21
Speaker 1: and he manages to get them out of the downplane,
20:24
Speaker 1: which is nearly impossible to do. He doesn't, and then
20:27
Speaker 1: both parachutes collapse, and suddenly Dave and Shirley have no parachute.
20:32
Speaker 1: They're less than a thousand feet from the ground, and
20:35
Speaker 1: they are falling once again, over one hundred miles per hour,
20:38
Speaker 1: straight down to the earth. Now, at this moment, Shirley
20:42
Speaker 1: is crying, she's screaming, she doesn't know what's going on,
20:44
Speaker 1: and Dave has this incredible sense of calm come over him.
20:48
Speaker 1: Years ago, Dave had given up on the idea of
20:51
Speaker 1: ever having a family, or of having kids. He was
20:53
Speaker 1: a really good guy who would have been a great father,
20:56
Speaker 1: but it just wasn't in the cards for him. Instead,
20:59
Speaker 1: Dave had found skydiving. Oftentimes, Dave would stay late at
21:03
Speaker 1: Skydive Houston and just sit around the campfire with the
21:06
Speaker 1: other instructors and the other jumpers and drink beers and
21:09
Speaker 1: eat burgers and tell stories. And sometimes Dave would even
21:13
Speaker 1: sleep the night at Skydive Houston because he didn't want
21:16
Speaker 1: to go back home to his empty three bedroom house,
21:18
Speaker 1: where all he wanted to do when he was there
21:20
Speaker 1: was go skydiving again. But now literally staring down his
21:25
Speaker 1: own death, knowing that it's going to happen any second.
21:28
Speaker 2: The only thing he could think about was Shirley.
21:30
Speaker 1: He didn't care if he died. He felt like he
21:33
Speaker 1: had found his calling. If he died doing it, so
21:35
Speaker 1: be it. But surely her husband, her son on the ground,
21:40
Speaker 1: her son's skydiving, her three grandkids, They're gonna see Shirley
21:43
Speaker 1: hit the ground and die. He just couldn't handle it.
21:47
Speaker 1: He thought, I have to do something to protect Shirley,
21:50
Speaker 1: And with only a few hundred feet to the ground,
21:54
Speaker 1: Dave yelled to Shirley, tuck your knees up, and Shirley
21:58
Speaker 1: immediately did it. She threw her kne and as she did,
22:01
Speaker 1: Dave pulled back as hard as he possibly could on
22:04
Speaker 1: the risers and the toggles in an attempt to switch
22:08
Speaker 1: places with Shirley. Shirley was in front of him. Her
22:10
Speaker 1: body's going to hit the ground first. Dave flipped them
22:13
Speaker 1: around so that his back was going to hit the
22:16
Speaker 1: ground first. He was going to sacrifice himself to maybe
22:19
Speaker 1: save Shirley. When they hit the ground, people a quarter
22:23
Speaker 1: mile away heard their impact and when they hit the ground,
22:27
Speaker 1: all of Shirley's family saw it. Everybody saw it. They
22:29
Speaker 1: went running over to the crash site, and when they
22:32
Speaker 1: got there, there was this tangle of bodies and this parachute,
22:36
Speaker 1: and as they're staring at it, they watched one of
22:38
Speaker 1: the bodies move.
22:40
Speaker 2: It was Shirley. She was alive.
22:42
Speaker 1: After paramedics arrived, they cut her off of Dave's body
22:46
Speaker 1: and they rushed her to the hospital, where she had
22:48
Speaker 1: serious injuries. She had several broken vertebrae and very significant
22:52
Speaker 1: internal injuries, but none of them were life threatening.
22:55
Speaker 2: She would survive.
22:57
Speaker 1: However, three days after arriving in the hospital, Shirley got
23:01
Speaker 1: devastating news. Dave had been rushed to the hospital as
23:04
Speaker 1: well right after Shirley had, but he finally had succumbed
23:07
Speaker 1: to his injuries and passed away. Dave's last ditch maneuver
23:11
Speaker 1: had worked. He had saved Shirley's life at the cost
23:14
Speaker 1: of his own. However, not long after Shirley and her
23:18
Speaker 1: family found out about Dave's death, they got another call,
23:22
Speaker 1: and this time it was to tell them that the
23:24
Speaker 1: news about Dave's death was premature. He was not dead, however,
23:29
Speaker 1: he was paralyzed from the neck down. A few weeks later,
23:32
Speaker 1: after Shirley got out of the hospital, she immediately went
23:35
Speaker 1: to the intensive care unit where Dave was being treated
23:38
Speaker 1: to see him for the first time since their accident.
23:41
Speaker 1: And when she saw him, he was sitting in a
23:43
Speaker 1: wheelchair covered in tubes and wires and she just stood
23:47
Speaker 1: there looking at him and Dave when he saw Shirley,
23:50
Speaker 1: he just started to cry. At this point, Shirley walked
23:53
Speaker 1: up to him, she gave him a hug, and she said,
23:55
Speaker 1: I love you. Today, Dave and Shirley are still friends.
23:59
Speaker 1: Shirley has recovered completely because of Dave's heroic act. Dave,
24:03
Speaker 1: on the other hand, remains paralyzed and only has a
24:06
Speaker 1: little bit of feeling in his right arm. He now
24:09
Speaker 1: lives in Texas with his mother, who looks after him
24:11
Speaker 1: full time, and they desperately need our support. My family
24:16
Speaker 1: has already made a donation to his GoFundMe page, and
24:19
Speaker 1: I hope some of you will do the same thing.
24:21
Speaker 1: You can find his GoFundMe page in the description below.
24:24
Speaker 1: And after speaking with him, he assured me that all
24:27
Speaker 1: of the donation money is being used to take care
24:30
Speaker 1: of himself. He has a lot of care that he needs.
24:32
Speaker 1: His mom can't do it alone, and so anything we
24:35
Speaker 1: give them is just making his life a little bit easier.
24:44
Speaker 1: I always tell my oldest daughter to do things that
24:47
Speaker 1: scare her because oftentimes those are the things we actually
24:51
Speaker 1: want to do the most. And so today I'm going
24:54
Speaker 1: to live up to what I always tell my kid
24:56
Speaker 1: to do, because today I'm announcing my first our live
25:01
Speaker 1: storytelling show.
25:02
Speaker 2: Doing a live event.
25:03
Speaker 1: Has always been so interesting to me, but it's actually
25:06
Speaker 1: just kind of terrified me, and.
25:08
Speaker 2: So I gotta do it.
25:09
Speaker 1: It's going to be a digital live experience on February sixteenth,
25:14
Speaker 1: so roughly two weeks from now, and because it's so
25:16
Speaker 1: close to Valentine's Day, we decided to call this show
25:19
Speaker 1: the Balentine's Day show, and this one hour long show
25:23
Speaker 1: will just be me at my desk with no script,
25:26
Speaker 1: telling you crazy, strange, dark and mysterious stories in real time.
25:31
Speaker 2: If this first show goes really.
25:33
Speaker 1: Well and people enjoy it and they want more of
25:35
Speaker 1: it than I think, there's a real chance we transition
25:38
Speaker 1: to a full scaled tour where maybe I could be
25:41
Speaker 1: telling live stories in campgrounds or in locations where some
25:46
Speaker 1: of these stories have taken place. We don't know yet,
25:48
Speaker 1: but it all starts with this first show. So to
25:52
Speaker 1: show your support and to tell us that you want
25:55
Speaker 1: a live tour, go get.
25:57
Speaker 2: Your tickets now.
25:58
Speaker 1: There's even some really cool special limited edition Ballentine's Day
26:02
Speaker 1: merch that you can get as part of a ticket bundle. Also,
26:05
Speaker 1: I'll be doing a live Q and a after the
26:07
Speaker 1: show that you can get a pass to as well.
26:09
Speaker 2: Go to Moment dot Co slash mister Ballin to.
26:13
Speaker 1: Get your tickets, to get your merch, to get your
26:14
Speaker 1: after party passes. Again, that's Moment dot Co slash mister
26:19
Speaker 1: Ballin Happy Valentine's Day.
26:24
Speaker 2: So that's going to do it.
26:25
Speaker 1: If you've got something out of today's episode and you
26:28
Speaker 1: haven't done this already, please sneak in to the like
26:30
Speaker 1: button's house and replace their cat with an identical looking cat.
26:35
Speaker 2: Also, please subscribe to.
26:36
Speaker 1: Our channel and turn on all notifications.
26:38
Speaker 2: So you don't miss any of our weekly uploads.
26:41
Speaker 1: We now have a podcast called the Misterballin Podcast that
26:44
Speaker 1: puts out brand new podcast exclusive stories on Monday mornings
26:48
Speaker 1: and on Thursday mornings, we put up the remastered audio
26:52
Speaker 1: of our best YouTube videos. Again, it's called the Misterballin
26:55
Speaker 1: Podcast and it's available exclusively on Amazon Music. We have
27:00
Speaker 1: two additional YouTube channels. One is called mister Ballin Shorts,
27:03
Speaker 1: the other is called mister Ballin and Espanol. We post
27:06
Speaker 1: mere daily content on TikTok, Facebook and Snapchat.
27:10
Speaker 2: All of those pages are just called mister Ballin.
27:12
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with me, please
27:14
Speaker 1: follow me on any major social media platform and then
27:17
Speaker 1: send me a direct message. My username is just at
27:20
Speaker 1: mister Ballin and I really do read the majority of
27:23
Speaker 1: my dms. Check out our merch at shopmisterballin dot com.
27:27
Speaker 1: And if you have a story suggestion, please submit it
27:29
Speaker 1: to our subreddit just called mister Ballin.
27:32
Speaker 2: It's linked in the description below.
27:33
Speaker 1: So whether I see you on Instagram Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, Facebook,
27:37
Speaker 1: other YouTube channels, the podcast wherever. Just note that I
27:41
Speaker 1: really appreciate your support and until next time, that's going
27:43
Speaker 1: to do it. See you