Freefall
By Ben Stutzman

“Come on, Mom, it’ll be fun! It doesn’t even look that sca-” 

“AAAAAHHHHHHHH!” Our debate was interrupted by a cry of terror from a full grown man. He had just jumped off of the Tarzan swing platform, and he sounded like a helpless baby.

“Uh, I don’t think so,” My mom replied. That was her final decision, and she would not change her mind.

“All right. We’ll go without you, but you have to stay down and film me when I do it,” I replied, giving in. I showed her the right buttons to press to make a video on my camera.

“Good luck,” she muttered, and my dad, my sister and I stepped into line. We started at the bottom of the wooden staircase leading up to the platform, my stomach churning. Slowly, person after person jumped off of the top of the tall wooden structure, secured to a long rope harness. It didn’t look too bad. At least that’s what I thought.

Let’s back up a bit. In early July, 2010, my family departed for a 10 day vacation in Costa Rica. Right now, we were at our second of three places that we were going to stay in, Monteverde. We were in Selvatura Park, on the Canopy tour. We had just finished going on a set of 13 zip lines, of varying sizes and heights, the longest one over a kilometer. The total of all the zip lines put together was 4.1 Kilometers. Surprisingly, the first one had been the shortest, but it was the scariest. After that I got used to the awesome flying sensation, and had time to actually look around at my beautiful surroundings.

Once we finished the 13 up with the final humongous zip line, I was pretty confident. We walked on a brick path for a while, past the butterfly sanctuary, gazing at all of the flora and fauna. Finally, we passed over a long, green, hanging bridge, to get to the optional Tarzan swing. It worked like this:

A person would wait in line on the stairs leading up to a 30 foot platform. When it was their turn, the two Costa Rican guides would use their carabiners to attach their harness (which they still had from the zip lines) to a long rope. The rope stretched out a very long distance, arcing slowly up to attach to the overhanging limb of a humongous tropical tree. Once the person was harnessed in, the guides would unlatch and swing open a small wooden gate, so that there was a space large enough for a person to simply walk off of, into open air. The person would then jump off of the platform, and zoom towards the ground, but just before they hit, the rope would go taught. They would swing out super far into the rainforest, and then swing back, until they were going slow enough for two other guides on the ground to stop them. For this, a black device attached to two ropes was used, sort of like a balloon, to stop them from swinging out again. Lastly, the guides on the ground would unharness the person, and they would walk away.

	So, that was the complicated process of the Tarzan swing, that all went by in a couple minutes.

	My sister wasn’t scared at all, and she volunteered to go first in our family. I went second, and my dad went last. We waited in line for about half an hour, but it seemed like 3 times that long. Halfway through our wait, a teenage girl who had been in our zip line group came down the steps. 

	“I am not doing this,” she said to us as she passed, “It’s too scary.” Wimp! I thought to myself. If only I knew. Eventually it was my sister’s turn. She walked up to the guides, and they harnessed her in. I watched from directly behind her as the gate swung open and she dropped from sight without a sound. In seconds, I saw her flying back up into the air, 50 feet away, as swift and silent as a falcon.

	I watched for a couple seconds, but then I realized that it was my turn. I bravely stepped up the last step, and the two guides set to work. They must have attached at least 3 carabiners. Then, the moment came. The flimsy brown gate creaked slowly open, revealing the open air and the ground with people staring up at me, 30 feet below. Extremely nervous, I asked the guides if I could jump, just to make sure everything was ready. I wouldn’t want to jump without something attached, and go slamming into the dirt below. They just nodded their head vaguely. I asked them again, super scared now. They nodded their heads again, confirming that it was ok. They probably wondered what in the world was taking me so long. Holding my breath, I stepped off, into space.

	As soon as I began to plummet towards the ground, a blood-curdling scream came from nowhere. After a moment, I realized that I was the one screaming. I saw the ground flying at me, and I felt like a parachutist who had just hurled myself from a thousand foot high plane. I had no idea that falling 30 feet or so would be so frightening. The ground came at me, faster and faster, and when I was only 5 feet away, my strong harness saved me. I swung back up and out into the jungle, and immediately got over my fear and stopped screaming. When my ride was done and I had slowed down enough, the guides on the ground stopped me and let me down. I was light enough that they didn’t need to use the black balloon device to catch me, they just reached up and grabbed onto my legs.
	
	I was released, and I walked over to my mom and sister, with a grin on my face. My mom patted me on the back, and my sister immediately started making fun of me for screaming like a girl. I watched my dad go (He wasn’t scared at all), and he imitated a Tarzan yell. Then we departed, to take a tour of the hanging bridges.

	This was one of my most vivid memories because it was the most terrifying moment of my life, although not the most life threatening, but that’s a story for another time. As I walked away from the Tarzan swing, I thought about the three main things I was happy about on this adventure: First, I had chosen to do something that I was very frightened about. Then, I had overcome my fears and made the jump. And lastly, you know that camera that my mom took the video on? It didn’t have sound to hear my scream.