around him. i need to make sure i am aiming myself back towards the drop zone to make sure i m safe and to make sure everybody else gets back. i consider that my responsibility as the person on the bottom. but as quickly as bland reorients himself, unbelievably, it happens again. another pocket of dead air, and another midair collision. this time, two different wing-suit fliers. as they tumble in the sky, the team reaches 5,000 feet and bland signals to pull their parachutes, unsure if everyone is accounted for. after we opened the parachutes, i look around to see the correct number of people are there. i knew how many people we had in the flock when we left the airplane. and then i counted that number of parachutes, plus mine, when we opened. so i knew everybody had a parachute open. they could have been hurt, but they weren t dead. when they land, bland finds out that everybody in the group
a sky diver is running out of time, and altitude. i could see my altimeter going into the red zone. the only two things that separate him from almost certain death. this was 100% unprecedented for me, and unimaginable. the parachute center in encampo, california, is open for business, weather permitting, 365 days a year. world championship sky driver greg stapleton has more than 7,000 jumps under his belt. everything can happen in a split second. it can all change in a moment s notice, so you ve got to be ready. you ve got to be on the edge. stapleton is one of an elite group doing formation sky dives which involve the risky maneuver of holding onto a fellow jumper s chute in mid air. there is probably only 500 people on the planet who do formation sky diving with their parachute open. today his partner is katie hanson.
people on the planet who do formation sky diving with their parachute open. today his partner is katie hanson. she won t be so intimidated that they can t think and can t do. craig and i jump together all the time. hanson is recording their jump on her helmet cam. everybody has cameras. this is sky diving. stapleton and hanson are a good team with more than 11,000 jumps between them. stap em ton has done this stunt they are about to tackle before, but it s the first time for hanson. there is a learning curve where you have to figure out what could possibly be going. at 8,000 feet they start their high stakes stunt at the timinger themselves together with both chutes open. i ve actually krould down the lines of her parachute so that
a parachute open. they could have been hurt, but they weren t dead. when they land, bland finds out that everybody in the group is okay. his legs and back are very sore from the impact, but more than anything, he s thankful the episode is over. it was a huge feeling of relief to finally get my feet back on the ground. there a rule, that it s better to be down here wishing you were up there, than to be up there wishing you were down here. but if you think this brush with death will cause scott bland to stop jumping out of planes, think again. a lot of people look at skydiving and think these people are just nuts. they have a death wish. this is not the kind of thing i could do. there s no payoff without some kind of risk. and if you take a graduated risk, the payoff can be well worth it. jumping from 6,000 feet above one of the coldest and most remote places on earth, a wing-suit flier misjudges his altitude and crashes into a
sergeant, thank you so much. sir, we have some wonderful stories. i had a kid here in chicago. the helicopter came in and he it was mail call. they were going to get some supplies. and he goes up, they hand him the bags of mail and throw them on the ground and it s a hot lz, landing zone, so the chopper comes in really fast and they hand him a stack of chicago pizzas and he completely froze. he said he couldn t move. and the chopper guy is like get out of here, we ve got to go. he couldn t move and his buddies dragged him away. he s like oh, my god, chicago pizza. then some special operation guys last fourth of july contacted me and said, sir, we ve been out for months eating just mres. this is like a week before the fourth of july, get us some. i said, okay, have your guy call my guy over there. i can t know where you re at. so the morning of fourth of july they re standing, 17 guys are waiting. an airplane goes over and they see a parachute open. it s coming down, coming down and