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Chapter 1: What led Brad to take the tandem skydive?
I did feel some anxiety and I felt some fear and some jitters, but I put that down to just anticipating what I was about to do. I nearly get ripped out of the harness because we're moving so much. I lose a shoe. My tandem instructor is just yelling at me to keep my feet down so we can stay strapped together. And that is the moment that the panic started to set in.
My name is Brad Guy, and this is what I survived.
Skydiving. It's built as a bucket list item that everyone should tick off at some stage in their life. And in fact, over 70,000 people in Australia each year will take that leap in a tandem skydive. Like anything in life, the sport comes, of course, with its risks. But it wouldn't be an extreme sport without it.
If there was no jeopardy, there would be no fear, no adrenaline rush and no excitement. But then when we do these things, I don't think we ever really actually believe something's going to go wrong. But what happens when it does? And how do you recover? How do you put yourself back together? Okay. Do I gotcha?
Yay, okay.
There he is. Brad Guy was one of those 70,000 in 2013. Just like millions before him, a young 22-year-old from country Victoria, Brad was a little nervous yet excited to take that leap. However, he could never imagine that that day would change his life forever.
Jumping from 15,000 feet, Brad's instructor's parachute would fail, leaving them hopelessly falling at 80 kilometers an hour towards the ground. By some incredible miracle, they survive.
But the trauma of what happened to Brad that day would be his biggest battle, turning a fun-loving, carefree guy into someone who would go on to battle severe mental anguish, guilt, depression, and constant nightmares, as well as even contemplating ending his own life. My name's Jack Lawrence. Welcome to What I Survived. Chapter one, the outgoing kid from the country.
Brad Guy grew up in a small country town outside of Melbourne called Pylong. With a population of just 200 people, it was very much a rural country Australian community. And Brad says, looking back, he loved it and now feels it almost gave him the drive for adventure.
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Chapter 2: What went wrong during Brad's skydiving experience?
I'm feeling nervous. My whole family's here. They've taken the day off. It's a Saturday. It's sunny in Melbourne, which is rare. Let's just get it done. So that's another variable on top of all the other variables that went into what ended up actually happening.
So many sliding doors moments. It's insane, really.
And it's hard to reminisce about all those choices. Yeah, I bet. And this is like a side note tangent, but I spent many, many years picturing these parallel universe versions of myself where I made different choices. Luckily now, 10 years later, I feel like they've all kind of coalesced into the one thing. So I don't have to worry about these other timelines. It's not a multiverse. There's one.
If you've ever done skydiving, the plane is tiny. And I was the only one in the plane with my tandem instructor. You're on a tiny rubber mat, 15,000 feet in the air. The plane is rickety. It's scary. It's a scary thing. The door opens, we get to the edge, three, two, one. And of course the tandem instructor being the cheeky person that he is, leaps on two and out the plane we go.
And I kind of knew what to expect based on the safety procedure that happened before we jumped, but that is a very euphoric feeling. And it sounds very simple to say, but it does feel like you're falling. You're free falling. It's happening and you feel heavy and it's terrifying, but it's a thrill because you know you're going to survive and you're going to land safely on the ground.
Brad and his instructor are now in what they call free fall. Now for a 15,000 foot jump, this can last between 60, 70 seconds. And after that, the ripcord is pulled to release the chute for anywhere between a two to 10 minute ascent to earth. And everything was going to plan until Brad looks over his shoulder.
I see behind me that there's just like this like blue and yellow flailing sheet, which ends up being the parachute and it hasn't opened correctly. So it's all crumpled together and I can just feel my tandem instructor behind me just throwing elbows and grunting and pulling on cords. There's all this movement happening behind me.
And once I look up again, that's when I can see two parachutes and just a split second flash. I'm not able to really look up because with the two parachutes tangled, it just leaves us shaking violently. So we're shaking side to side. I nearly get ripped out of the harness because we're moving so much. I lose a shoe.
My tandem instructor is just yelling at me to keep my feet down so we can stay strapped together. And that is the moment that the panic started to set in. It didn't feel correct. This didn't feel like what was meant to happen.
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