Parachuting is sometimes called skydiving. The first time I parachuted out of an airplane, I was wearing an Army uniform. Some people believe that parachuting is fun, but I am afraid of heights. Risking my life by jumping out of a perfectly good airplane was not fun. But I did volunteer for that military training. The height at which I parachuted was the same height as the Empire State Building in New York City. Falling from that height is a long way down. But the time passes quickly.
Typically, every soldier who performs this wears two parachutes: a “main chute” that is worn on your back and a “reserve chute” that is worn across your chest. If the main chute fails to open while you are falling, you can open the reserve chute to save yourself. If it works. By carrying two parachutes, the odds that both parachutes will fail are extremely small. But as I prepared to jump out of that airplane for the first time, risking my life, I did not feel reassured by the fact that the odds were in my favor. No, I was terrified that I would become the one unlucky guy who beats the odds because both of his parachutes fail.
Most soldiers do not open their main chute by hand. They don’t need to. The main chute has a cord which is hooked onto the airplane; after you jump out, the cord is supposed to pull-open your parachute, which usually happens. The opening should occur within four seconds, and so soldiers count to four. (Do not count to ten. You will hit the ground before you reach nine.) If your main chute fails to open after four seconds, open your reserve chute. (Act quickly.)
After I jumped out, my main chute opened in less than two seconds. The parachute quickly filled with air and expanded to its full size. As the speed of my descent slowed, I looked up at the fully open parachute and said out loud, “Wow! It works!” A few moments later, I landed on the ground quite safely. Nearby, I saw another soldier who had landed only a few seconds before. I shouted with jubilation and with a little surprise, “I’m alive!” (Maybe I shouted that to myself more than to him.) He showed me a big smile because he had the same experience only moments before.
I had come close to death. Later, I came close to death five times because the military school required five jumps, including one at night.
If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
The entire experience was exciting and it defied death, but it was not a near-death experience (NDE) according to how this book uses that term. In your own life, you may have experienced situations when your life was in danger—for example, perhaps you were almost hit by a speeding car—but you survived and then continued to live your life much as before. Perhaps the incident was so ordinary that you almost forgot it. That incident endangered your life, but it was not an NDE.