The emotions surrounding my first skydive were incredible – worry, fear, excitement and anxiety, and that’s all before I arrived at Vegas Extreme Skydiving Saturday morning. The airplane we flew in was very rickety, made a lot of noise and normally would be quite scary, that is if you’re mind isn’t pre-occupied by thoughts of jumping out of it a few minutes later.
Somehow I got the pleasure of going first, which required me to sit right next to the door. After the fact, I think it was good to go first. My friends were the last ones out, and the thought of watching everyone else toss themselves out the side of the airplane probably would have raised my heartbeat above an already dangerous level.
Immediately after leaving the airplane, the feeling of fear and anxiety turned to excitement. Then, 10,500 feet later when the parachute opened, that feeling of excitement turned to satisfaction, relaxation and enjoyment as the likelihood of me making it safely back to earth increased significantly.
Did I ever think that I would go skydiving? No. Am I glad I did it? Absolutely! I would encourage anyone to do this at least once, even if you're scared.
To put the risk in perspective, the company we used, Vegas Extreme Skydiving, has been around for 7 years and has never had an accident. Also, a few of the instructors I met have over 20 years of skydiving experience and around 20,000 jumps a piece. While it only takes one mistake to mitigate all this experience, these few little facts helped me feel a bit more comfortable before my jump.
