January 26, 2007
Shoot the Chute
This is just kind of a creepy story; I'm only interested because it almost exactly parallels a book proposal I pitched a number of years ago... which was rejected for being too unrealistic.
Two gals are best friends (this is in the town of Opglabbeek, Belgium). They're both skydivers... but one starts having an affair with the other gal's weirdo boyfriend.
The cheatin' skydiver, her girlfriend, the cheatin' boyfriend, and an extra in a red shirt jump out of a perfectly good airplane. They form a "star." Four jumpers split apart and pull their ripcords; three parachutes pop open.
The cheatin' girl plummets earthward. Astonishingly, even her reserve chute fails. After a 13,000-foot freefall, she smacks into the ground in front of a bunch of spectators, planting herself deep enough that all they had to do was shovel some dirt over the top.
But when the authorities review the footage from her helmet cam, they realize that both her chutes had been sabotaged... and now her best friend, the girl whose boyfriend was having an affair with the dead girl, has been arrested for premeditated murder.
Here's a clip from the eulogy by the dead girl's sister:
At Mrs Van Doren’s funeral, about 1,000 people heard her sister deliver a bitter eulogy. “You did all you could during that final jump to save yourself,” she was quoted as saying in the Belgian press. “But someone did not want you to live.”
Huh, maybe I should dust off my proposal and make the rounds again... nah -- now they'd just say, "it's too derivative!"
Hatched by Dafydd on this day, January 26, 2007, at the time of 1:21 PM
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Comments
The following hissed in response by: Rod
"jump out of a perfectly good airplane"
Reminds me of a line from a song we used to sing while "forced marching (that's Jarhead talk for running) in advanced ITR-
... Paratroopers got no brains
they jump out of aeroplanes..
guess you know now I'm older than dirt - aeroplanes!
an *old*exJarhead
The above hissed in response by: Rod ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://biglizards.net/blog/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 26, 2007 1:54 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh
Rod:
But do you go out to see the "fillum" Sands of Iwo Jima and pine, "o, if only I'd been a bit younger?" <G>
Dafydd
The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh at January 26, 2007 2:08 PM
The following hissed in response by: Doc-obiwan
err..Rod, I have a few Jarhead jokes, too!
However: Army parachutes are like Maxwell House coffee...good to the last drop.
If your parachute doesn't work, turn it in after the jump. They'll issue you a new one.
If your main fails and your reserve fails, cross your feet, extend your right arm out from your body, extend your left arm straight up, thus creating a human corkscrew. It won't do anything for you, but it will save your wristwatch for your buddies.
It's not the fall that hurts...it's the sudden stop.
Oh, and as for "perfectly good airplanes"...some of the ones I've jumped from I was more than happy to get out and get clear, before they went down, and took me with them!
Doc...retire Army Special Forces
The above hissed in response by: Doc-obiwan at January 26, 2007 2:09 PM
The following hissed in response by: Dick E
Guys, I know that you probably don't hold the Air Force in very high esteem, but since you're going on about "perfectly good airplanes"-
Air Force pilot's definition of a good landing: One you can walk away from.
I've never experienced a bad landing in my life. ;-)
The above hissed in response by: Dick E at January 26, 2007 6:21 PM
The following hissed in response by: S. J. Reidhead
My favorite rejection occurred in the late 1970’s from the pen of the late Isaac Asimov no less. I read an article about cloning from DNA, which spurred my imagination into writing a short story about a long dead individual being re-created through cloning. Low and behold the rejection included the comment that he had seen some far-fetched outlandish ideas in his life, but no publisher in their right mind would consider publishing an story or book about cloning something long dead through DNA! I was just a few years too early. Maybe my mistake was not cloning dinosaurs!
The Pink Flamingo
The above hissed in response by: S. J. Reidhead at January 27, 2007 8:18 PM
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