Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Galligle people of
Speaker 1: the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present.
Speaker 1: This episode contains discussion of suicide. If this raises any
Speaker 1: issues for you, support is available through the links and
Speaker 1: phone numbers in the show notes.
Speaker 2: It's nineteen eighty two and we're in New Mexico.
Speaker 3: Six year old Jeb Carlis is in the back of
Speaker 3: his aunt's car watching birds soaring above. He announces, when
Speaker 3: I get older, I'm going to do that. His aunt
Speaker 3: explains that when he gets older, he realized that humans
Speaker 3: can't fly. Jeb will go on to dedicate the next
Speaker 3: forty two years of his life to human flight, from
Speaker 3: major feats like the Eiffel Tower to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Speaker 3: Jeb is compelled and propelled by fear, but he isn't
Speaker 3: afraid of death.
Speaker 2: He expects it.
Speaker 3: I'm at Middleton and this is head Game today, one
Speaker 3: of the world's greatest base jumpers on pushing this human
Speaker 3: body to its absolute limits. Jeb calls, it's an absolute
Speaker 3: pleasure to have you on my podcast.
Speaker 2: Head Game Now.
Speaker 3: Jeb spends more time in the air than he does
Speaker 3: with his feet firmly on the ground. He is one
Speaker 3: of the world's greatest base jumpers. Jeb, how are you, mate?
Speaker 4: I am doing spectacular. This whole being a live thing
Speaker 4: is super super awesome, you know what.
Speaker 2: I love that, mate.
Speaker 3: I've got that gratitude as well with some of the
Speaker 3: experiences that you've been through. You know, just waking up,
Speaker 3: taking that deep breath, being able to open your eyes
Speaker 3: is you know, we're hugely grateful for that.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I don't think people understand how rad it is
Speaker 4: to not be dead like this. Being a live stuff
Speaker 4: is super cool, and being dead is super lame. I mean,
Speaker 4: OR had so many friends who died like twenty years ago,
Speaker 4: and I look at the last twenty years and just go, man,
Speaker 4: you guys missed out on such cool shit. Life is
Speaker 4: so amazing. And it's weird because when you're younger, you
Speaker 4: don't seem to appreciate like what life really is. You know,
Speaker 4: it's strange. You have to kind of live long enough
Speaker 4: for life to kind of teach you like how to
Speaker 4: actually live it. It's strange. It's a weird experience. But
Speaker 4: I feel really grateful now where I didn't when I
Speaker 4: was younger, which is strange.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're right though, mate. You know, you go through
Speaker 3: these life experiences, you know, especially with yourself. You know,
Speaker 3: you go to these heights of fear, you scrape the
Speaker 3: bowl when it comes to treading that line of life
Speaker 3: and death, you know, And that comes through, obviously, experience,
Speaker 3: it comes through getting out there, It comes through committing
Speaker 3: to life and committing to yourself. And that's what I
Speaker 3: love about you, mate. I love that your attitude. You
Speaker 3: had this I'm going to prove you wrong. Attitude from
Speaker 3: the age of six, when you were in the car
Speaker 3: with your aunt, right, take me back to that moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So it's funny because when I was kid, I
Speaker 4: had a lot of dreams and I was very unrealistic
Speaker 4: about a lot of things. I had a very active imagination,
Speaker 4: and you know, I had a lot of adults tell
Speaker 4: me that my you know, imagination was unrealistic, and you know,
Speaker 4: they may have been right. It may have been very unrealistic.
Speaker 4: But as it turns out, I was sitting in the
Speaker 4: backseat of my aunt's car. I was looking out the winder.
Speaker 4: I was like six years old, and I remember seeing
Speaker 4: birds standing on a telephone pole, like on the wire,
Speaker 4: and I remember them jumping off and opening their wings
Speaker 4: and starting to fly, and I remember going like, you know,
Speaker 4: when I get older, I'm doing that, you know. And
Speaker 4: my aunt, you know, kind of looked out the window
Speaker 4: and saw what I was looking at, and she's just like, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, you're really young. But when you get older,
Speaker 4: you're gonna realize that's just not physically possible. And it's
Speaker 4: interesting because now looking back, it's really fascinating when people
Speaker 4: tell you you can't do something right, when they're saying
Speaker 4: you can't do this or you can't do that, really
Speaker 4: what they're saying is I can't do it. What they're
Speaker 4: telling you is something that they're incapable of. And it's
Speaker 4: really interesting because when you say you want to do something,
Speaker 4: you know, they don't know what you're capable of. They
Speaker 4: don't know who you are, they don't know what you
Speaker 4: can do, but they do know who they are. They
Speaker 4: do know what they can do.
Speaker 3: And they don't know what goes on in here right
Speaker 3: exactly what it was ticking in the back of your head.
Speaker 4: And and they they try to place their limits on you.
Speaker 4: And that's when they're telling you. When anyone tells you
Speaker 4: you can't do something, really they're saying they can't do it.
Speaker 4: And it's a fascinating thing because you know, at the
Speaker 4: time I was young, I don't understand that I'm just
Speaker 4: being told I can't do something. And I even then,
Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, whatever, maybe you can't, but I'm
Speaker 4: going to you know, And that was just my personality.
Speaker 4: That's the kind of person I was, even as a
Speaker 4: little little kid. But it's interesting because you know, I
Speaker 4: had my first near death experience when I was six,
Speaker 4: and it told me free that it's complicated, you know,
Speaker 4: I was. My parents were art dealers when I was
Speaker 4: a child, and they used to travel to foreign countries
Speaker 4: like India, Nepal, Pakistan, and at five, we went on
Speaker 4: a year long trip through India and Nepal, and when
Speaker 4: I was in New Delhi, India, I got like, I
Speaker 4: think we're like towards the end of the trip, so
Speaker 4: I turned. I went from five and turned six while
Speaker 4: it was in India, and I got something called the
Speaker 4: Deli belly, which is like a really aggressive form of
Speaker 4: a mubic dysentery and it, you know, I my parents
Speaker 4: took me to a doctor who told them I was
Speaker 4: going to die, that he could do nothing for me,
Speaker 4: and that I was not going to make it. I'd
Speaker 4: already lost over a third of my body weight and
Speaker 4: I was already in a really bad way. Amoebic dysentery
Speaker 4: and New Delhi is really bad. Like it's super serious.
Speaker 4: It's a it's seriously the worst place you can get it,
Speaker 4: one of the worst, and it's serious for an adult,
Speaker 4: but for a child, you know, a five six year
Speaker 4: old kid, it's super serious. And and like I said,
Speaker 4: the first doctor they took me to who told them
Speaker 4: I was going to die, like they're like, there's nothing
Speaker 4: we can do. And they didn't like that. Obviously my
Speaker 4: parents like, okay, second opinion on that one. You know,
Speaker 4: obviously they were not going So they took me to
Speaker 4: another doctor and and this was a more western doctor,
Speaker 4: and they said, you know, they're, well, this bad. We're
Speaker 4: not going to pretend like it isn't, you know, but
Speaker 4: we're gonna do what we can do. And I didn't
Speaker 4: end up dying, but I did go through three months
Speaker 4: of serious hallucinations and like like serious problems. I mean,
Speaker 4: it was it wasn't a joke and I remember it
Speaker 4: like I can still remember going through the suffering. And
Speaker 4: it's weird because after that I realized that I was
Speaker 4: going to die. I just knew it. I mean, it's coming.
Speaker 4: Death is coming for me.
Speaker 3: And it was strange, but not in that moment you
Speaker 3: just thought, well, actually, we're we're mortal.
Speaker 2: You know, we die, We're die.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's when I understood death was coming, right, not
Speaker 4: that right this act. I survived this, but it's going
Speaker 4: to happen. And I think that, you know, a lot
Speaker 4: of people think that, you know, the transition from childhood
Speaker 4: to adulthood, you know, is some age. I don't think so.
Speaker 4: I think that the transition from child to adult is
Speaker 4: understanding death. And I've met ninety year olds who still
Speaker 4: don't understand death, and as far as I'm concerned, they're
Speaker 4: still children. You know. I've also met, like you've met
Speaker 4: kids who have experienced near death experiences and understand death,
Speaker 4: and they are, in my opinion, adults. You know, once
Speaker 4: you once you truly grasp what death is, and once
Speaker 4: you truly accept that it's coming for you, you grow up.
Speaker 4: You know, you become you understand it's you're forced to
Speaker 4: grow up well. And it's and it's a philosophical understanding
Speaker 4: because once you truly grasp death, and you truly grasp
Speaker 4: it's coming to an end, all of a sudden, the
Speaker 4: little bit of time you get to exist matters so
Speaker 4: much more. All of a sudden, every moment becomes so
Speaker 4: crucially important to you because you realize they're limited. You know,
Speaker 4: so at six years old, to understand that my life
Speaker 4: was limited and I only had a little bit of
Speaker 4: time to get shit done, it made me, all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, become much more focused on getting shit done.
Speaker 3: And also that you wanted to fly as well. You know,
Speaker 3: you wanted to get stuff done, you wanted to fly
Speaker 3: like a bird.
Speaker 4: And then you know, that actually came later because because
Speaker 4: what happened unfortunately at that point when my aunt told me,
Speaker 4: you know, that's not possible, at that moment, I was
Speaker 4: already like I can do anything. Nothing, it's stop me, right.
Speaker 4: But what's interesting is as a child, and I don't
Speaker 4: think adults do this on purpose. I don't think it's
Speaker 4: but adults do try to teach children how to live
Speaker 4: in this world and how to exist, and they try
Speaker 4: to teach you how to be realistic and how to
Speaker 4: exist right. And I think in that process they have
Speaker 4: a tendency to crush dreams and kind of kick dreams
Speaker 4: out of you and kind of make you conform and
Speaker 4: fit into a mold that they think you need to
Speaker 4: exist on this planet and succeed in the future. And
Speaker 4: it's not I don't think they're being it's not a
Speaker 4: negative thing. They're not trying to do something bad to you.
Speaker 4: They're actually trying to help you without really realizing that
Speaker 4: what they're actually doing is kind of breaking your.
Speaker 2: Limiting and limiting you as well and limiting you.
Speaker 3: I always say that when parents say, oh, be careful,
Speaker 3: watch out when you do, I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2: Let them find out that ship up, let them graze
Speaker 2: any let them get back up.
Speaker 4: That you have to you have to experience pain, You
Speaker 4: have to struggle, you have to fail. These are important.
Speaker 4: Let me put this way. You're gonna learn a lot
Speaker 4: more from failing at doing something then you will from succeeding.
Speaker 4: You know. So, if your parents are just making you
Speaker 4: succeed all the time, you're not learning anything. You have
Speaker 4: to fail at stuff. You have to fall down, you
Speaker 4: have to break bones. You have to get hurt, you
Speaker 4: have to like, you know, run in that race and lose,
Speaker 4: you know, and this has to happen to you because
Speaker 4: that's what helps you learn something right. And so what
Speaker 4: happened to me is through my like younger years, like
Speaker 4: grade school years and then early teens, I had been
Speaker 4: so heavily broken by just the society in which I
Speaker 4: lived and by the people who I was around. They
Speaker 4: just kind of crushed me into the dirt, to the
Speaker 4: point where I no longer remember any of the dreams
Speaker 4: I had. I no longer had dreams, I no longer
Speaker 4: had desires, I no longer wanted anything.
Speaker 3: And do you remember being in the headspace do you
Speaker 3: remember going from this young sort of I'm.
Speaker 2: Happy to be alive. I want of the two.
Speaker 3: God, this is quite you know, I'm being quite suppressed here,
Speaker 3: I'm being quite limited.
Speaker 2: I can't really do this.
Speaker 4: Yes, I remember it, but I can't relate to that
Speaker 4: person anymore. But what I can say is I remember
Speaker 4: going through an incredibly dark period where I no longer
Speaker 4: wanted anything, I no longer cared about anything, and I
Speaker 4: became incredibly suicidal, like like I didn't.
Speaker 2: Like it was a season.
Speaker 4: Oh, this was between like twelve to to nineteen, Like
Speaker 4: twelve to eighteen was where it got really strong. It
Speaker 4: was at its worst at around sixteen sixteen was like
Speaker 4: its most like acute. And if I hadn't found base
Speaker 4: jumping at that moment in my life, I don't think
Speaker 4: I would have survived. And what happened to me is
Speaker 4: I was in a kind of a darkened state, really
Speaker 4: bad place, and I was sitting on a couch, flicking
Speaker 4: through endless television channels, you know, nothing, not caring about anything,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden, something came on the television
Speaker 4: that just instantly just caught my attention, and it was
Speaker 4: a man standing on the edge of a cliff, you know,
Speaker 4: just standing there. And I remember going huh, like instantly,
Speaker 4: what's that guy doing? And I was saying, like, looks
Speaker 4: back at the camera, he sticks his tongue out, and
Speaker 4: then he jumps off the cliff into a gainer, and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, that image from childhood kind of
Speaker 4: flushed back in that dream of like flying all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, like was kind of reignited, and as I
Speaker 4: saw him, like, oh my god, I've been lied to
Speaker 4: my entire life. That's what I was talking about. People
Speaker 4: are doing it like that's that's exactly what I was
Speaker 4: talking about. And this sense of like it felt almost
Speaker 4: like electricity, like I could feel the hair standing on end.
Speaker 4: I became like super like excited, and I'm like, that's it.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do that for
Speaker 4: the rest of my life until it kills me period.
Speaker 4: I will never stop. I will do whatever it takes.
Speaker 4: That's it. That's what I'm doing. So why I say
Speaker 4: base jumping saved my life is because you know, you
Speaker 4: go through like peaks and valleys with depression, like you
Speaker 4: kind of come out of it and you'll be kind
Speaker 4: of okay, and then you drop back into it and
Speaker 4: you kind of come back out and you drop back
Speaker 4: in and during that period for the next two years
Speaker 4: in mile because you can't just start base jumping. It
Speaker 4: doesn't work like that. You know, as a sixteen year old,
Speaker 4: you know, I would I call every drop zone like
Speaker 4: I want to base jump, and they just like laughed, like, ah.
Speaker 2: I can.
Speaker 3: I quickly take you back to that moment that you
Speaker 3: saw that bass jumper, when you initially saw that person
Speaker 3: standing on the edge of a cliff. Did it get
Speaker 3: your attention because he was stood on the edge of
Speaker 3: a cliff just about to jump, or was it when
Speaker 3: he jumped off the cliff and the parachute opened and
Speaker 3: then he jumped off, and did it sort of take
Speaker 3: you back to that moment where you're like, I want
Speaker 3: to fly, you know, well, actually we'll actually call that.
Speaker 4: I think it's it's layered, and it's actually interesting you
Speaker 4: asked that question, because no one's ever asked that. I
Speaker 4: saw it as a very perfect activity from my mindset
Speaker 4: as a sixteen year old depressed child, right, which was,
Speaker 4: if I did it, then I would do something that
Speaker 4: very few human beings on this planet are willing to
Speaker 4: do because they're so terrified of dying, right, Like I
Speaker 4: wasn't worried about the death part, right, so I felt
Speaker 4: like I could excel and push it to another level.
Speaker 4: The best way I can describe it is imagine me
Speaker 4: trapped in a dark cave, right with no light. You're
Speaker 4: in darkness, there is no possibility of anything. And then
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, what base jumping became was this
Speaker 4: little tiny light off in the distance, right, and I
Speaker 4: could see this light. Now that I was like, well,
Speaker 4: let's go towards the light, like what is that? And
Speaker 4: that was base jumping for me, right and on that
Speaker 4: journey towards that light because it takes time. You can't
Speaker 4: just get there like You're gonna have to go climb
Speaker 4: those little hills and climb those little mountains and claw
Speaker 4: your way towards the light. And what would happen is
Speaker 4: every now and then during that process because it took me.
Speaker 4: I didn't get to do my first skuydive until I
Speaker 4: was eighteen. I didn't get to do my first base
Speaker 4: jump un till I was twenty one. So we're talking about,
Speaker 4: you know, five years of time for me to even
Speaker 4: get to the place where I could do a base jump.
Speaker 3: But was that focus for you? Was that a drive?
Speaker 3: Was that something that kept you ultimately kept you alive?
Speaker 4: It's more than that, because let's just say, you know,
Speaker 4: in sixteen, that's when I was at my darkest period,
Speaker 4: but it was still pretty dark through seventeen through eighteen.
Speaker 4: It wasn't like I was a big, happy, smiley person
Speaker 4: just because I found purpose. You know, It's more than that.
Speaker 4: So what would happen is I would get into these
Speaker 4: really dark places, and what stopped me from doing it
Speaker 4: was all of a sudden, I'd be like on the
Speaker 4: edge and I'd like, no, don't waste it. Like, if
Speaker 4: you're gonna kill yourself anyway, do something with your death,
Speaker 4: you know, you go base jumping, like get that goal.
Speaker 4: And that's what made me hang on during those really
Speaker 4: dark periods where things just felt like they were crushing
Speaker 4: me and I just felt like what's the point and
Speaker 4: like life just seems so utterly pointless. And then in
Speaker 4: the process of training right because you like I said,
Speaker 4: it takes time. You have to do you know, one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty to two hundred skydivees before you can
Speaker 4: even begin base jumping, right and to get there, you know,
Speaker 4: And at the time, I didn't have a lot of money.
Speaker 4: I worked at a movie theater as a projectionist, you know,
Speaker 4: making you know, minimum wage, which was like three twenty
Speaker 4: five at an hour at the time. You know, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's nothing. So you know, I would save up money,
Speaker 4: go do a skydive. Save up money, go to a skydive.
Speaker 4: So it took me almost let's see, it was from
Speaker 4: eighteen to twenty one to basically get my license, which
Speaker 4: you know, most people can do that in a couple
Speaker 4: of weekends, but I didn't have the money, so I
Speaker 4: had like literally save up jump, save up jump. So
Speaker 4: it took a long time, which was good. It was
Speaker 4: actually good for me because by the time I got
Speaker 4: to base jumping, I didn't want to die anymore. All
Speaker 4: of a sudden, by the time, you know, at twenty one,
Speaker 4: I wasn't suicidal anymore. I'd become super happy. I'd met
Speaker 4: a bunch of people who I enjoyed their company. I
Speaker 4: found people who are like minded. I started making friends,
Speaker 4: and it started in the community, well community, and more
Speaker 4: than that, I just I get the purpose. Like I mean,
Speaker 4: I think that's what most people like. They're like, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, whatever is John Lennon, Like, you know, meaning
Speaker 4: of life is being happy? You know, No, not really,
Speaker 4: the meaning of life is purpose. You have to have
Speaker 4: a reason to be here, a reason to eat eat,
Speaker 4: eat food, drink water, breathe oxygen, a reason to exist.
Speaker 4: There has to be a reason. You need some kind
Speaker 4: of purpose. You need meaning, right and then once you
Speaker 4: have meaning and you have purpose, then that gives you
Speaker 4: the drive to go out there and do that purpose,
Speaker 4: do what that is and in the process of striving,
Speaker 4: especially if it's a difficult thing, if it's a scary thing,
Speaker 4: if it's something that can like break you and kill
Speaker 4: you and do horrible, awful things to you. For some reason,
Speaker 4: that struggle is what brings happiness. By succeeding and overcoming
Speaker 4: those obstacles and doing things really difficult and literally facing
Speaker 4: stuff that you don't know if you can do it.
Speaker 4: You're like, I don't know if I have what it
Speaker 4: takes to make this happen, right, And then you do it,
Speaker 4: and you're like, and that sense of accomplishment, that sense
Speaker 4: of doing something really difficult and really painful and something
Speaker 4: that was really hard, right, and you struggled to get there.
Speaker 4: That accomplishment then brings happiness. Happiness is like a byproduct,
Speaker 4: like a really nice byproduct of accomplishing a difficult task.
Speaker 4: That's really what it comes from. People don't understand. You
Speaker 4: can't be at peak happiness one hundred percent of the time,
Speaker 4: otherwise it's not peak happiness anymore. It just becomes normal.
Speaker 4: So then you get to base jumping and you start
Speaker 4: doing what it is and you start, you know, experiencing horrific,
Speaker 4: horrendous shit like things that. I mean, dude, by this
Speaker 4: way is as dangerous as you think. Base jumping is
Speaker 4: as dangerous as people assume they have no clue. It
Speaker 4: is lethal and scary on a level that is impossible
Speaker 4: to comprehend, and like it. I've done a lot of
Speaker 4: dangerous stuff in my life. I ride motorcycles, I climb,
Speaker 4: surf big waves, dive with sharks, you know, I do
Speaker 4: all this stuff. I skydiving. And what you learn when
Speaker 4: you start doing these more dangerous activities is there actually
Speaker 4: not that bad. You know, with the right training and
Speaker 4: the right preparation, you can actually do them in a
Speaker 4: relatively safe way, right where they're no longer this like
Speaker 4: horror show where you're like scared all the time, where
Speaker 4: it actually becomes enjoyable and fun. Base jumping is the
Speaker 4: first thing that I got into that is not only
Speaker 4: every bit as scary and dangerous as I thought it was,
Speaker 4: but after a decade of doing it, you're like, oh
Speaker 4: my god, I had no idea like this.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the best route, mate, Sometimes the naive is the
Speaker 3: best route.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, It's it's so bad that I cannot even
Speaker 4: describe it to you. It's it's impossible, Like I have
Speaker 4: seen things that I could never have imagined. I've experienced things,
Speaker 4: I've I've felt pain on levels that are I didn't
Speaker 4: think were possible. It is an absolutely terrifying sport.
Speaker 3: Take me back to that very first and not base jump.
Speaker 3: That very first time you were in the air, looking
Speaker 3: out the door and thinking, well, this is this is it?
Speaker 3: How did you manage that?
Speaker 2: Fear?
Speaker 4: Fear is a process, okay, and anyone who lifts weights
Speaker 4: or works out in a gym, it's a very similar process. Right.
Speaker 4: So let's say your goal, right, my goal was base jumping, right,
Speaker 4: that's what I wanted to do. You can't just do that.
Speaker 4: If you do, the fear will overwhelm you and you
Speaker 4: will die. It's kind of like being in a gym
Speaker 4: AND's like my goal is to bench press three hundred pounds. Yeah,
Speaker 4: go okay, Yeah, you'll literally just crush yourself and you'll die.
Speaker 4: I mean literally, the first day you can't even get
Speaker 4: the weight off the rat grey.
Speaker 2: Time is out back.
Speaker 4: The stude's gonna crush himself, right, because you have to prepare,
Speaker 4: and fear is the same thing. Right, You'll start with
Speaker 4: the bar forty five pounds, right, then you'll put ten
Speaker 4: pounders on and then you'll slowly, over time start adding weight,
Speaker 4: adding weight, adding weight, and you'll just keep pushing and
Speaker 4: pushing until eventually, over enough time, with enough reps, with
Speaker 4: enough experience, you'll be able to push that three hundred pounds.
Speaker 4: Fear is the same way fear. You don't just start,
Speaker 4: you know, by jumping off the Eiffel Tower and doing
Speaker 4: a double reverse flip. Right, that's not how it starts.
Speaker 4: It starts with a tandem skydive. Right. You go do
Speaker 4: a tam so you're hooked to an instructor. You get
Speaker 4: he's in charge of everything. All you have to do
Speaker 4: is go for the ride. You get to have the
Speaker 4: experience of what it's like to be in the plane,
Speaker 4: look out the door, step out of an air craft
Speaker 4: of twelve thousand feet, be in free fall. You know,
Speaker 4: then you're not You don't have to worry about controlling
Speaker 4: the parachute. So that gives you your first sense of fear,
Speaker 4: of like, oh, this is what this is? Okay, I suppose.
Speaker 3: It's like exposure taking the layers off. Yeah, exposure, exposure, repetition, repetition, right.
Speaker 4: Well, you know it's funny because you hear the term
Speaker 4: desensitization like it's a negative thing, right, you'll hear that
Speaker 4: all the time, like desinsinization. In America they use it
Speaker 4: as this like negative term. But in all honesty, that
Speaker 4: is the process of overcoming fear. You have to desensitize.
Speaker 4: That's it's an absolute necessity if you're if you're gonna
Speaker 4: fight in a ring, or you're gonna do anything, you
Speaker 4: have to learn how to cope with that fear. And
Speaker 4: that comes from desensitizing yourself to it. It actually makes
Speaker 4: you stronger. And and that's what fear is. Fear is
Speaker 4: you expose yourself to small fear in the beginning that
Speaker 4: isn't actually dangerous, right, It's just things that scare you
Speaker 4: but won't actually hurt you. That's the first fear you
Speaker 4: deal with, the fears that won't actually inflict physical harm
Speaker 4: to you, but just give you that sensation of fear.
Speaker 2: Take me back to your first base jump jemp.
Speaker 4: You know that's not a good one to take you
Speaker 4: back to you because my first one didn't scare me
Speaker 4: that much. See, the base jumps are funny because there
Speaker 4: are base jumps Like now I can do base jumps
Speaker 4: that I don't even get my heart rate doesn't even
Speaker 4: go up like I can do base jumps. R. I
Speaker 4: just step off and it's just and and I do
Speaker 4: a gainer and it's just like, I don't even my
Speaker 4: heart rate doesn't even change.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So there are bass jumps that are totally chill, totally mellow.
Speaker 4: Then there are bass jumps that are so goddamn horrifying
Speaker 4: that literally my entire body is shaking. I'm on the
Speaker 4: verge of throwing up. I'm literally about to literally collapse
Speaker 4: under my own skin. I've been on base jumps where
Speaker 4: I've started crying.
Speaker 2: Take me back to an example of that.
Speaker 3: When was the first time that you felt that when
Speaker 3: because you said your first one was comfortable, when's the
Speaker 3: first When was your first one where you were like whoa, whoa.
Speaker 4: There was a little three hundred foot in Tena that
Speaker 4: was about forty five minutes from my house in Malibu,
Speaker 4: and the the the antenna was on a little hill
Speaker 4: in came Rio, right off the one oh one freeway,
Speaker 4: and I used to drive by it. And it was
Speaker 4: very early in my base jumping, like I had just started.
Speaker 4: I had like, I think five base jumps. I think
Speaker 4: this was gonna be my sixth jump. All my other
Speaker 4: base jumps were off this really high bridge. I considered
Speaker 4: it to be safe. I felt comfortable there. It didn't
Speaker 4: it for some reason. Yes, it was scary, but it
Speaker 4: wasn't like life altering or life changing. And actually it
Speaker 4: almost let me down a little bit, like I was.
Speaker 4: I was like, man, I was expecting this to be
Speaker 4: a little bit more like. It just didn't seem I'm like,
Speaker 4: I thought this was gonna be a lot like more
Speaker 4: like life altering is what I thought. But it wasn't.
Speaker 4: It was kind of scary, but it wasn't like you know,
Speaker 4: this one. So I find this little antenna, like always
Speaker 4: kind of looking at it, and I'm like, I wonder
Speaker 4: if that's tall enough. But I always thought it was
Speaker 4: like seventy five feet tall. Looked like this tiny little
Speaker 4: thing on this hill. I'm like, that's not high enough.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 4: Anyways, I had a buddy who's a pilot who had
Speaker 4: an aeronautical chart, And the aeronautical chart tells you how
Speaker 4: tall every building is, how tall every antenna is. It
Speaker 4: tells you all obstacles that you could potentially hit with aircraft.
Speaker 4: So he had an aeronautical chart of the camera rio area,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, hey, I wonder how high that antenna is.
Speaker 4: So I got his aeronautical chart. I found the antenna
Speaker 4: and it said three hundred feet and I was like,
Speaker 4: holy shit, that's like you can base jump that. That's
Speaker 4: high enough, like just high enough, but it's high enough.
Speaker 4: Like I'm like, I'm gonna go base jump that, you.
Speaker 2: Know, just high enough. Yeah, Well it wasn't high enough.
Speaker 4: But this is the thing, I know more now than
Speaker 4: I did then, Right, So you have to understand a
Speaker 4: lot of this has to do with timing, and it
Speaker 4: has to do with with education, It has to do
Speaker 4: with preparation, it has to do with training. So what
Speaker 4: happened is at the time I had gone through a
Speaker 4: little course from a group called Basic Research, which were
Speaker 4: the first group who was training base jumpers. And my instructors,
Speaker 4: I had two of them. One was Todd Shoeboth and
Speaker 4: Anne Helliwell, and I called up Annie and I said, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, I found this antenna and I had gone
Speaker 4: there and I'd scouted it out and I'd figured out
Speaker 4: exactly how high I could jump from. I couldn't jump
Speaker 4: from the top because there was antenna stuff. So I
Speaker 4: had to jump from under the antenna stuff, so it
Speaker 4: was like two hundred and sixty feet, so you know,
Speaker 4: I needed some information. I was told never to like
Speaker 4: free fall under three hundred feet, that I needed to
Speaker 4: use a static line. Blah blah blah. It's all complicated. Shit.
Speaker 4: I don't want to get too into that because it's
Speaker 4: too complicated. But I called her to ask her a
Speaker 4: very simple, like technical question, and the question was, Hey,
Speaker 4: if I use a forty eight inch pilot shoot and
Speaker 4: I do a go and throw, how long will it
Speaker 4: take my parachute open? And she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
Speaker 4: what are you trying to jump off of? And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's a three hundred foot antenna And I was explained.
Speaker 4: She's like whoa wait, okay and antenna shaul. Does it
Speaker 4: have guy wires or is it free standing? And I'm like,
Speaker 4: it has guy wires. She's like, okay, don't jump that.
Speaker 4: It's like straight up, I'm telling you right now, if
Speaker 4: you jump an antenna that low that has guy wires
Speaker 4: and you get a ninety left or right, you're going
Speaker 4: to die. Like that's it. It's going to kill you.
Speaker 4: Do not jump that antenna. It's a bad jump. Just
Speaker 4: don't even go anywhere near it. And I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 4: that's really great information. That's not what I asked you.
Speaker 4: The question is if I do a going through with
Speaker 4: a forty eight inch pilot, shoot, how long will it
Speaker 4: take my parachute open? And she's like, Jeb, shall do
Speaker 4: not jump that. She'll you are not ready for something
Speaker 4: like that. And she's like, and when you do get
Speaker 4: ready for something like that, you won't jump it because
Speaker 4: you'll know better. She's like, so don't go jump that.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, how long will it take my parachute open?
Speaker 4: She's like, Jeb, probably about one hundred and fifty feet.
Speaker 4: I'm like, perfect click, and I'm like, that's it. One
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty feet. I'm jumping for two hundred and sixty.
Speaker 4: That gives me around what ninety feet to land. I'm good,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do this, right. I end up going out there.
Speaker 4: So it's it's complicated. It's such a complicated story. But
Speaker 4: at the time, I was living in my parents' guest house, right,
Speaker 4: So that's you know, that's kind of how I was
Speaker 4: able to like survive. I would work, make my money
Speaker 4: go do that, and I didn't have rent because I
Speaker 4: was leaving my parents' guest house. I was leaving to
Speaker 4: go do this jump, and my mom saw me with
Speaker 4: my rig. She knew I only had five base trimps.
Speaker 4: I was obviously just knew, and she's like, what is
Speaker 4: there to jump around here? So she sees me getting
Speaker 4: in my car with my rig and she's like hey,
Speaker 4: she runs out. She liked, what are you doing. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 4: I found this three hundred foot antenna. I'm gonna go
Speaker 4: base jump in She's like, whoa, whoa, exaid, what are
Speaker 4: you talking about? She had listened to me long enough,
Speaker 4: like you know, you're talking to your parents, You're like
Speaker 4: telling them and explaining things to them. So she understood
Speaker 4: just enough to know that that was a really bad
Speaker 4: idea at my skill level. Right that I was not
Speaker 4: that she knew the lower things were the more dangerous.
Speaker 4: It was that that's three hundred feet. That's really low.
Speaker 4: And she's like, no, jeb, I don't I don't think
Speaker 4: that's a good idea. And I'm like, yeah, well I'm
Speaker 4: doing it. And she's like, Okay, I've never told you
Speaker 4: not to do anything in your life. You know, I've
Speaker 4: always supported you in everything. So I'm telling you right now,
Speaker 4: if you do this, you need to find a new
Speaker 4: place to live. That's how serious this is. And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: you do what you need to do. I'm gonna do
Speaker 4: what I need to do. And I just got in
Speaker 4: my car and left. I'm like, if I have to
Speaker 4: move out, I'll move out. I don't care. Nothing's gonna
Speaker 4: stop me from doing this, right. I called when I
Speaker 4: called my best buddy at the time, and I said, Hey,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go jump this three hundred foot antenna. I'd
Speaker 4: like you to come and do ground crew for me
Speaker 4: in case I break a leg or get hurt, so
Speaker 4: I have someone to call the you know, call help,
Speaker 4: right And he responded with I'm not gonna come watch
Speaker 4: you kill yourself, Jeb Zaul. If you're doing this, you're
Speaker 4: doing this on your own. You're gonna do this by yourself.
Speaker 4: I Am not gonna come there. And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: that's fine. Then I do it alone, you know, And
Speaker 4: I'm like, there's nothing that's gonna stop me from doing this.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 3: I'm going, Well, something is in you ahead, Jeb, is
Speaker 3: it is it very very hard to extract it is
Speaker 3: it is?
Speaker 2: Do you have to do it to get it done?
Speaker 2: To take it off?
Speaker 4: The answer to that is no. But what I will
Speaker 4: say is, at this particular moment, in this particular jump,
Speaker 4: this was something I had to do because at this
Speaker 4: point I didn't feel like a base jumper yet the
Speaker 4: jump that I had done didn't really do anything for me.
Speaker 4: I needed to see, you know what, can I do this?
Speaker 4: Am I capable of pushing through genuine horror?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: Can I do this? Is? I knew what the dangers were.
Speaker 4: I I got what everyone was saying. It wasn't like
Speaker 4: I was being delusional. I understood I needed to do this.
Speaker 4: So I get there. It's like I would have to
Speaker 4: wait till dark because it's obviously the one oh one,
Speaker 4: so you don't want to be seen climbing it, so
Speaker 4: it has to be pitch black. It was a new moon,
Speaker 4: so it was a pitch goddamn black. I get to
Speaker 4: the hill like around eleven o'clock at night, and what
Speaker 4: was interesting is I had scouted it the week before,
Speaker 4: but the week before it was really cold. Tonight was
Speaker 4: actually a nice, warm night, like it was spring, like
Speaker 4: the temperature was just starting to change, and I start
Speaker 4: walking up the hill and it's pitch black. I can't
Speaker 4: turn lights on because I don't want people seeing me
Speaker 4: going up the hill. And all of a sudden, I
Speaker 4: just hear this sound of it's a fucking rattlesnake, and
Speaker 4: it's like right next to me, dude, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: oh shit.
Speaker 2: I cat signs of them.
Speaker 4: I'm like, ah fuck. And I was when I was
Speaker 4: a little kid. I used to catch rattle snakes for fun,
Speaker 4: so I knew how dangerous they are. And you definitely
Speaker 4: don't want to be around rattlesnakes in the dark when
Speaker 4: you can't see them. And I'm like, oh shit. So
Speaker 4: I kind of like grope around looking for a stick,
Speaker 4: and I find like a stick and I kind of
Speaker 4: push it out in front of myself as I'm walking.
Speaker 4: And as I'm walking, dude, it's like just a chain reaction.
Speaker 4: There are hundreds of rattlesnakes. They are fucking everywhere. And
Speaker 4: this hillside has one road and around the road is
Speaker 4: filled with cactus, so it's all cactus. So when I
Speaker 4: jump this thing, I have to land on this road
Speaker 4: in the dark, covered in fucking rattlesnakes, and around it
Speaker 4: are cactus everywhere. So I'm just like, this is insane,
Speaker 4: Like what am I doing? That's actually not what I
Speaker 4: was saying. Well, it's funny as I was tricking myself
Speaker 4: into doing it. So what I was saying is I'm
Speaker 4: not doing this. So I'm walking up. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 4: just gonna walk up there and I'm just gonna go
Speaker 4: take a look. That's all I was doing, right, So
Speaker 4: I'm walking, walking, walking, and I'm like pushing rattlesnakes out
Speaker 4: of way, and I'm like they just keep going off.
Speaker 4: I get to the fence, which is a razor wire fence.
Speaker 4: I take a jacket, throw it over the razor wire,
Speaker 4: climb over the road wire, get into the antenna. The
Speaker 4: antenna is so tiny, it's three hundred feet so it
Speaker 4: has one light in the middle and one light on top,
Speaker 4: and the actual ladder's on the outside. So I'm climbing
Speaker 4: on the outside of an antenna doing this with no protection.
Speaker 4: You fall, you die, you know, And I'm just climbing
Speaker 4: this ladder and as I'm climbing, I'm just like, I
Speaker 4: am not going to do this, Like this is not happening,
Speaker 4: like I Am not doing this. As I keep moving
Speaker 4: and as I'm going further, my heart is literally beating
Speaker 4: in my chest in a way that it's impossible to
Speaker 4: describe it because it actually feels like it's moving up
Speaker 4: and into my throat, like it's actually trying to Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's like my heart's trying to escape out my mouth
Speaker 4: like it wants it doesn't want anything to do with this.
Speaker 4: It wants to get away from me. It's like, what
Speaker 4: are you doing? And the horror in fear gets more
Speaker 4: and more intense because i know I'm gonna do it,
Speaker 4: even though I'm telling myself, no, I'm not gonna do this.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna wait, I'm not gonna do this. I get
Speaker 4: to the two hundred and sixty foot mark. The antenna's
Speaker 4: shaped like a like an a, and I get inside
Speaker 4: the antenna and I'm sitting on one bar with my
Speaker 4: feet on the other two and I'm looking down. I
Speaker 4: can see through the antenna all the way to the ground,
Speaker 4: but it's really dark, it's like super pitch black, and
Speaker 4: I'm sitting there. I'm kind of like looking out and
Speaker 4: it's totally calm, not a breath of air, literally zero wind,
Speaker 4: and I'm looking down the freeway and I just see
Speaker 4: cars just snaking off in both directions, and it was
Speaker 4: so surrealistic, Like it's so surreal it's hard to even
Speaker 4: your mind goes into the super strange place because I'm
Speaker 4: sitting inside an antenna three like to well, two hundred
Speaker 4: and sixty feet off the ground, just watching cars pitch black.
Speaker 4: I can't see the road I'm supposed to land on.
Speaker 4: I can't see shit. And I'm just like and I
Speaker 4: start telling myself, like, you know, I'm not ready for this.
Speaker 4: You know, maybe after I do, you know, I go Norway,
Speaker 4: I do some big jumps, maybe I'll get ready for
Speaker 4: this and I'll come back. I'm not doing this. As
Speaker 4: I'm telling myself that I get my pilot shoot out,
Speaker 4: and I'm like starting to get my pilot shoot ready,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, there's no way I'm doing this. As
Speaker 4: I slide out the antenna and I'm like hanging out
Speaker 4: and I'm like looking down and right then I'm like,
Speaker 4: I am not going to do this. As I push off,
Speaker 4: and I remember pushing off And this has only happened
Speaker 4: to me a couple times in my life, and usually
Speaker 4: it's during accidents. This is the only time I've ever
Speaker 4: had this happen when it wasn't an accident. And what
Speaker 4: happened is I push off and I throw the pilot
Speaker 4: choote and then everything freezes. Time just stops, like everything's
Speaker 4: just and it's literally time all of a sudden just
Speaker 4: distorts and starts stretching, and all of a sudden, seconds
Speaker 4: are stretched into what feel like minutes, Like it's the
Speaker 4: most bizarre experience when all of a sudden, time just goes.
Speaker 3: God, and it's in that moment, isn't it, in that
Speaker 3: pacific moment. It's not moments, it's not moments.
Speaker 4: It's that moment. And what I'm doing is I'm just
Speaker 4: frozen and I'm looking down, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: I can feel the hair standing up on the back
Speaker 4: of my neck. I can feel the air literally touching
Speaker 4: my skin. I can all of a sudden look down
Speaker 4: and I can see like I was pitch black, I
Speaker 4: couldn't see shit. And now all of a sudden, I
Speaker 4: see the razor wire fence, I can see the road,
Speaker 4: I can see the cactuses. All of a sudden, I'm
Speaker 4: like my senses all of a sudden became super hyper aware,
Speaker 4: and as I'm looking down, I see the little red
Speaker 4: light that marks the center of the antenna. Now I'm
Speaker 4: just watching it slowly start coming, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: I pass the little red light that marks the middle.
Speaker 4: And as I pass that light, my brain all of
Speaker 4: a sudden does these like really quick calculations and it's like,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, You've just gone more than half the antenna.
Speaker 4: Your parachute hasn't opened yet, You've gone more than one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty feet. Oh shit, you're going in like
Speaker 4: uh oh. And I remember seeing the razor wire fence
Speaker 4: which was going to be my impact point, and I
Speaker 4: see it coming and I'm like, oh shit. And I
Speaker 4: remember bringing my hands up and by bracing for impacts
Speaker 4: like I'm gonna be like, okay, I'm hitting this friggin
Speaker 4: like razor wire fence. So I bring my arms up,
Speaker 4: and right as I do this, I hear this sound
Speaker 4: of velcrow going and what that is is at the
Speaker 4: back of the shrivel flap of my parachute. It goes,
Speaker 4: and then all of a sudden, my parachute opens. Dude.
Speaker 4: It felt like someone had taken me and placed me
Speaker 4: against a brick wall and took a baseball bat and
Speaker 4: just hit me in the chest with it as hard
Speaker 4: as they could and literally just like boom. And the
Speaker 4: impact of opening was so strong that it almost knocked
Speaker 4: me unconscious. And I'm like cool, and I'm like holy shit,
Speaker 4: And all of a sudden, I'm so low. I don't
Speaker 4: have time to grab toggles. I just grab one rear riser.
Speaker 4: I'm turning as I impact the asphalt of the road,
Speaker 4: and I bounce off the asphalt sideways. So I hit
Speaker 4: the asphalt, bounce, and I'm laying in the grass and
Speaker 4: I remember my entire body just vibrating, and then I
Speaker 4: remember like standing up and I could see everything and
Speaker 4: I can actually hear little insects crawling in the grass,
Speaker 4: I mean, and I was so oh dude, I was
Speaker 4: connected and wired to the reality and the universe in
Speaker 4: which I existed in a way that I've never felt.
Speaker 4: I mean, it was so powerful, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: I'm like, that's it. I'm a base jumper.
Speaker 3: Now you went to South Africa tabletop, you jump off,
Speaker 3: you injure yourself and then you think to yourself, right,
Speaker 3: I'm going to go back there and then.
Speaker 2: You mess yourself up. You fuck yourself up even more.
Speaker 3: Take me through that mindset that you had and what
Speaker 3: actually happened on that day.
Speaker 4: Well, needless to say, I've been almost killed twice in
Speaker 4: South Africa. The first time was jumping off a three
Speaker 4: hundred foot waterfall where I broke my back in three places,
Speaker 4: all my ribs, left foot, right knee. I was eating
Speaker 4: live by animals for three hours where I waited for rescue.
Speaker 4: Rescue took nine hours. Spent six weeks laying in a
Speaker 4: South African hospital on my back broken, completely shattered.
Speaker 2: How how did that happen?
Speaker 4: I mean, there are a lot of things. It's I
Speaker 4: messed up. I was new. I only had forty base jumps.
Speaker 4: It was in nineteen ninety nine, like I had just
Speaker 4: I was in the very early stages. Basically, It's funny
Speaker 4: because it was the beginning of my career, and my
Speaker 4: career ended with the career ending injury, Like there was
Speaker 4: an injury that should have stopped me from base jumping,
Speaker 4: like any normal sane human would would have been like, Okay,
Speaker 4: that's it, I'm done with this. And the doctor even
Speaker 4: said he walks into the you know when I'm in
Speaker 4: the emergency room and I'm in he comes in. He's like, oh,
Speaker 4: I bet you're never gonna do that again. And I'm
Speaker 4: just like, uh, actually, the only two things in the
Speaker 4: world are going to prevent me from base jumping or
Speaker 4: quadriplegia or death. Anything short of that, I'm gonna keep jumping.
Speaker 4: And he just looked at me and he's like, whoa,
Speaker 4: He's all right, Well, I guess you'll keep jumping then,
Speaker 4: you know. But that that, at that stage in my life,
Speaker 4: there was just nothing. I mean, I didn't care. The
Speaker 4: only reason I was getting better, the reason I went
Speaker 4: to rehab, the reason I worked out and fixed my
Speaker 4: back and fixed the injuries, was so I could jump again.
Speaker 4: That's all I cared about. That's all there was. So
Speaker 4: that was, you know, in ninety nine nine, And then
Speaker 4: the one you're talking about was in twoenty and twelve.
Speaker 4: I was filming for Real Sports on HBO. At that
Speaker 4: stage was like thirteen fourteen years. I'd already been earning
Speaker 4: a living as a base jumper. I'd already done countless documentaries,
Speaker 4: I'd already done countless TV shows, and now I was
Speaker 4: already filming and I'm doing a show now for real
Speaker 4: sports now.
Speaker 3: And this is why it's so interesting this one, because
Speaker 3: you know you you experienced your the top of your game.
Speaker 3: You're at the top of the game, and this is
Speaker 3: why I just want to know about your headspace.
Speaker 2: Was it?
Speaker 3: Was it never by you? Did you go in over confident?
Speaker 3: Did you go in you know? Did ego get in
Speaker 3: the way?
Speaker 2: Did you know? Do you know what I mean? This
Speaker 2: is why it's so interesting that moment.
Speaker 4: The reality of the situation is all those things come
Speaker 4: to play. But really, at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: it's simpler than that. The real reality is is wingstue
Speaker 4: proximity flying has very small margins for error, and when
Speaker 4: you make mistakes, the mistakes are very serious. Usually the
Speaker 4: mistake's equal death. Like if you mess up while proximity
Speaker 4: flying in a wingsuit, you will most likely die. And unfortunately,
Speaker 4: I'm a human being, and human beings make mistakes. And
Speaker 4: that's one of the reasons why base jumping and especially
Speaker 4: wingsuit proximity flying are so dangerous. Because you are a
Speaker 4: human You're gonna make a mistake and when you do
Speaker 4: in this sport, it's gonna be serious. That's all there
Speaker 4: is to it. And the best way to put it is, yes,
Speaker 4: we can go through the list of mistakes, but I'm
Speaker 4: a human being. I messed up. I impacted flat solid granite.
Speaker 4: You know, I was flying at an angle. But the
Speaker 4: people keep arguing if it's granite or you know, cape stone,
Speaker 4: whatever it is, it's flat solid rock, right flats a
Speaker 4: lot of rock. I impact it over termed at one hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty plus miles an hour. Okay, I hit it
Speaker 4: terminal velocity, which to bounce off flat rock at terminal
Speaker 4: velocity is not a survivable accident. You will die like
Speaker 4: I had a get ripped in half doing this exact
Speaker 4: same thing. So you know, I impacted, And when I
Speaker 4: hit I knew I was gonna die like it was
Speaker 4: an unsurvivd It was so strange because I'm coming in.
Speaker 4: I've set up a target. It's a balloon coming in
Speaker 4: to hit the target. I think I'm good. Everything looks
Speaker 4: fine from my perspective, and everything's looking okay, and I'm
Speaker 4: coming from my target and I hit my target. But
Speaker 4: as I hit my target, all of a sudden, I'm
Speaker 4: tumbling and I can feel my legs are crushed. And
Speaker 4: I didn't even realize I was gonna impact until after
Speaker 4: I impacted, and all of a sudden, I'm tumbling and
Speaker 4: my legs are crushed and I can feel them crushed.
Speaker 4: Like I'm like, my legs are gone, like I don't
Speaker 4: have legs. I'm like, I'm destroyed. I'm gonna die. Like
Speaker 4: there's I realized instantly I just went in. I just
Speaker 4: impacted flat rock at terminal. I mean I was I
Speaker 4: was building speed, like I was going as fast as
Speaker 4: I could go, and I'm like, I'm dead. There's no
Speaker 4: way I can live. And my brain instantly split into
Speaker 4: two separate places, you know, And this is where time
Speaker 4: distortion happens again, where time just goes and stretches out.
Speaker 4: But this time the time distortion was even more bizarre
Speaker 4: because my brain went two different places. So one part
Speaker 4: of my brain was doing calculations. It was all math.
Speaker 4: It's like, okay, you're tumbling, regain control. So I'm regaining
Speaker 4: control with a broken wingsuit, destroyed body, and I'm still
Speaker 4: I have to fly over a series of three ledges
Speaker 4: or die. So my body goes into just automatic Okay,
Speaker 4: what do you need to do to survive? And it's
Speaker 4: just that's all being calculated. Okay, ledge, you gotta get
Speaker 4: over that ledge. Okay, there's no lege. You gotta get
Speaker 4: over that ledge. Oh you gotta get over that ledge.
Speaker 4: You gotta You don't have the altitude to pull, and
Speaker 4: my brain is just doing this, and then another part
Speaker 4: of my brain is having a philosophical conversation with me,
Speaker 4: and it's just like, huh, well, you're dead. It's unsurvivable.
Speaker 4: You just impacted flat rock at terminal. You can't survive.
Speaker 4: It's unsurvivable. You're going to die. So question is, how
Speaker 4: do you want to die? Do you want it to
Speaker 4: be slow, agonizing and painful or do you want to
Speaker 4: be quick? Those are your two choices, But you're gonna die.
Speaker 4: So I could either pull and land and slowly bleed
Speaker 4: to death while I'm waiting for a rescue, which I
Speaker 4: know from experience being part of quite a few of them,
Speaker 4: that if they send a chopper, it's probably forty five minutes,
Speaker 4: maybe an hour, is how long it will take for
Speaker 4: them to get me off that mountain. I will be
Speaker 4: dead probably within seconds, minutes, maybe a half hour if
Speaker 4: I'm lucky, depending on the damage to my legs. But
Speaker 4: I was sure that they were completely shattered and destroyed,
Speaker 4: and I was gonna bleed out almost certainly. So I'm like, huh,
Speaker 4: I can suffer for maybe a half an hour and die,
Speaker 4: or I could just not open go head first and
Speaker 4: just be done with it. And it was an incredibly
Speaker 4: difficult decision to make. It'd be like somebody coming to
Speaker 4: you and having a gun and saying I'm gonna shoot
Speaker 4: you in the head or the stomach. You get to
Speaker 4: die one way. You want to suffer, you want to
Speaker 4: be quick, and you have to make the decision. Am
Speaker 4: I gonna suffer through this? Or am I just gonna
Speaker 4: make it be finished? Because I'm not gonna live. And
Speaker 4: what's interesting is that the part of my brain doing
Speaker 4: all the calculations all of a sudden is like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I cleared the third ledge. I had as much altitude
Speaker 4: as I was ever gonna have. It's like you pull
Speaker 4: now or you die. This is the moment. And the
Speaker 4: part of my brain that was kind of thinking about
Speaker 4: this is like, well, you know, let's see how much
Speaker 4: time you can get. You know, if it's one minute,
Speaker 4: I want it. If it's two minutes, I want it,
Speaker 4: If it's ten minutes, I want I don't even care
Speaker 4: if it's suffering in pain. I just want time. All
Speaker 4: of a sudden, I realized the only thing that actually
Speaker 4: matters in life is time. That's it. As long as
Speaker 4: you're alive, anything can happen, anything's possible. But the second
Speaker 4: you're dead, that's it. It's the end of all possibilities.
Speaker 4: It's finished for you. So I decided, you know what,
Speaker 4: ye I want the time. So I pulled and I
Speaker 4: had a second and a half canopy ride with line
Speaker 4: twists impacted a second time, broke myself some more, and
Speaker 4: then I laid there suffering in pain. And it was
Speaker 4: like one hundred and twenty degrees that day. I was
Speaker 4: like breaking records for heat, and I'm covered in black
Speaker 4: and I'm being cooked alive, and I was white. My
Speaker 4: legs were broken open and a blood was everywhere, and
Speaker 4: it was just it was It was so painful and
Speaker 4: so horrible. But I will say this, you know, going
Speaker 4: from a suicidal teen right who didn't want to be here,
Speaker 4: who then went through that experience and chose life, you know,
Speaker 4: and that type of situation, it's absolutely fascinating to me.
Speaker 4: And I feel blessed. I feel very fortunate that I
Speaker 4: got to a place in my life where I was
Speaker 4: so content and so happy and understood that life is
Speaker 4: what matters. That time you get, that little time you
Speaker 4: get to exist is what means something. And you know,
Speaker 4: if you're suffering, if you're in a dark place, just realize, dude,
Speaker 4: hang on. You never know. You know, as long as
Speaker 4: you're alive, there's the possibility of better things. But the
Speaker 4: second it's over, it's over, man, and it's over forever.
Speaker 2: You know, you get that, you said it. As long
Speaker 2: as you've got that time, you know, give you a
Speaker 2: possible all time.
Speaker 3: Because that's where the opportunities possibilities can come from.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that, mate, I love that. Well listen,
Speaker 3: what a note to finish up on, Jeb. I love
Speaker 3: your en it. I could feel your energy through the screen. Honestly,
Speaker 3: it's very rare that you get that of experience that
Speaker 3: with a few people, and you're one of them. You know,
Speaker 3: you've hyped me up for the day now, which is
Speaker 3: always good. It was great, It was great, Jeb, listen,
Speaker 3: quick one just to quickly end up on what's the
Speaker 3: next jump for you?
Speaker 4: Honestly, dude, my life I could never jump again and
Speaker 4: be content at this stage. I'm just a happy human
Speaker 4: being who wakes up every morning stoke to be alive.
Speaker 4: Anytime I'll go back. You can buy myself without a
Speaker 4: bedpan is a freaking epic day.
Speaker 3: So well, listen mate, love that. Thanks so much, Jeb,
Speaker 3: you're a gentleman.
Speaker 4: Thanks buddy.
Speaker 3: My guest today was Jeb Carless. You can find out
Speaker 3: more about Jeb's story in his book Memoirs from the Edge.
Speaker 3: I link the details in the show notes. Thanks for
Speaker 3: listening to this conversation. I hope you found jeb story
Speaker 3: as fascinating as I did.
Speaker 2: I'm at Middleton. See you again next time.