From: dbriggs@zia.aoc.nrao.edu (Daniel Briggs)
Subject: Re: RIP
Organization: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro NM
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 17:59:41 GMT

Dan'l stands up to his full height, and slowly walks to the bar looking
depressed.  As he walks, you can hear him softly punctuating each step
step with a fairly mild curse, though obviously a heartfelt one.

"Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn it all anyway!  Mike, Howabout a beer.  Don'
care what kind, but I'd like it in a green bottle with a decent heft to it.

Dan'l accepts the bottle, and takes a solid pull from it as he walks up to
the chalk line.

"Well guys, on the tail of hearing about Robert's death, I'm afraid that I
have another one to unload.  It's not a personal friend, but in some ways
it might as well be.  The rumor mill is buzzing, and there is still no
first hand confirmation, but it very strongly appears that Tom Piras died
in a skydiving accident on saturday.  I hope very much that this is not
true, but I fear that it is.  An awful lot of people believe it.  Tom was
(is?) one of the greats of skydiving.  A former world champion relative
worker himself, he is probably best known for his teaching.  He has coached
several world class teams, and perhaps even more importantly he has done a
tremendous job of bringing new skydivers into the relative work world.  He
often held seminars aimed at the newer jumpers -- those no longer
supervised students, but not yet fully accepted into the "experienced
jumper" community.

"And the really sad thing about this accident, is that he died doing
exactly this, and it killed him.  Liralen talked about trust in your
teammates a while ago.  Well, this is especially critical in skydiving,
because a mistake on a team mate's part can in fact kill you.  It can be a
problem learning to fly well, because the better skydivers may not want to
jump with you until you've proved yourself safe and competent.  This of
course, takes experience.  It is jumpers like Tom Piras who help bring the
next generation of skydivers into the community.  I've heard a couple of
different versions of the story so far, and they range from a mild blunder
on the part of a low-timer which was compounded into a fatal one by an
equipment failure at the wrong time, to a completely bone headed stunt
which is absolutely inexcusable.  All that is completely clear is that on a
4-way training dive a student got below the group (which is a bad thing to
start with), and somehow his parachute deployed.  Unknown if he deployed it
himself.  Tom fell into the deploying canopy or jumper and was knocked
unconcious.  He never regained conciousness and hit the ground at terminal.
I don't know the status of the fellow that he fell into.

"I mourn Tom's loss, and feel the cruel irony that he should be taken by an
accident while training new jumpers to be safe.  And I suspect that this
accident might possibly widen the rift between skygod and newbie, which
won't do the sport much good in the long run.  It's just a downer on a lot
of fronts.

"This isn't the first time that I've gotten up here and talked about
skydivers hurt or dead.  I hope that I'm not giving people an
unrealistically dark picture of the sport.  You all don't see the great
joys of flight and fellowship that keep us coming back, just the sorrows
that I need to work out from time to time.  In terms of dry statistics, the
sport is reasonably safe, if not completely risk free.  But the community
is a tight one.  We hear about it, everytime that something does happen.
And for a man like this, the loss is especially keen.

The beer is nearly gone now, and Dan'l finishes it up thoughtfully.

"Blue Skies, Tom.  We'll miss you!

***crash***

-- 
| Daniel Briggs  (dbriggs@nrao.edu)                      |  USPA B-14993
| New Mexico Tech / National Radio Astronomy Observatory |      DoD #387
| P.O. Box O / Socorro, NM 87801   (505) 835-7391        | 
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