Donald Zarda

On Friday, October 3, Donald and four of his friends went on a trip to Les Diablerets in western Switzerland near the French border to jump a newer exit, close to the gondola. Once they came to the top, there was a bit of a down climb from the observation deck to the actual exit point. One of the guys wasn’t feeling great to begin with and took the gondola down and headed back to the landing area. Three of them climbed down and were throwing rocks for a while and got 4,5 seconds on a toss to 7 and even 8 seconds with a solid throw. Wind conditions were ideal. After 30 minutes or so of checking it out, one of the guys jumped. Donald watched him and felt more confident about it. Two of the guys were working on a project, so they came back up to the restaurant and were later going to go to the other known exit. They told him if he didn't feel like jumping this one, he could just join them at the other exit.

The two guys spent about 40 min in the restaurant, and as Don hadn’t come back, they called the guys on the ground to ask if he was down. They said no one else had come down so one of the guys went back to the observation deck to check. Donald was standing on the exit point, geared up and waiting for the clouds to open up. He yelled down to him multiple times to try to get his attention. After about 7-8 times Don notices, and says he can't hear him because of the music. He continued to yell to him to try to tell him to turn it off, and he repeats that he can’t hear him. About 20 seconds later the sky opens up and he walks to the edge and jumps. After 4-5 seconds the guy on the observation deck hears the first impact and then the suit flapping until he comes to rest a few hundred meters below.

this exit commanded a strong push as was evident with the rock throw. The first jumper pushed hard but Donald did not. As Donald is 90kg he just did not take off fast enough, and with the lack of push he did not make it past the first ledge at 100 meters (4.5 seconds).
He said he didn’t really like it and instead of coming up with the other guys he probably decided to jump because the first guy did and made it. Donald probably got the confidence to jump by watching the first guy get off, but as they never got to communicate with him due to the music, he could not ask what his reasoning was and how he felt about it..

Always know your own limits and compare other peoples performance only if you intimately know them.

Never judge an exit by other peoples performance as it does not relate to what you will do!

Donald was relatively experienced and had the opportunity to turn around with relative ease, but chose not to because of what he saw and felt. Keep the facts real and dont let small variables convice you to go beyond your own comfort zone!