EDMONTON – The skydiving community west of our city is mourning the loss of one of their own.
Forty-nine-year-old John Scott passed away Saturday evening, following a skydiving accident at Eden North Parachute Schools. He was an instructor at the school, which is located northwest of Stony Plain.
“Everybody is thinking about John,” said Lyle Waddell, the owner of the school. “It’s a very sad day for everybody here… John was one of us.”
“Everybody is just trying to keep going, but it’s kind of tough. It’s just tough with that feeling in your heart.”
Scott was an experienced skydiver who had been jumping since 1984, and had over 9,000 jumps under his belt. Taking part in the 100-way canopy formation world record and being a member of the Canadian Forces SkyHawks– Canada’s only Military Parachute Team- were just a couple of Scott’s accomplishments.
The following photograph of Scott was supplied by Eden North Parachute Schools.
But Saturday night, something went wrong. Scott was out for his fourth jump of the first day of the school’s 2013 skydiving season. Waddell says Scott was wearing a high performance parachute, which is meant to maximize speed in the air. Scott’s parachute opened normally, but Waddell says he landed too quickly in the drop zone.
“When he came to the flare, or the breaking point for landing, he made a miscalculation or mishandled it at that time. He had a high impact landing.”
“He was resuscitated at the scene, transported by EMS to the hospital and he was declared deceased at the hospital,” said Cpl. Colette Zazulak with Spruce Grove/Stony Plain RCMP.
This is the second death of a skydiver at Eden North; a similar incident in 1996 killed an instructor.
Waddell says because of how fast parachutes are nowadays, it is usually the most experienced of skydivers that are injured or killed.
“But you can’t take our parachutes away from us. You couldn’t take that one away from John, he was flying a rocket.”
The Spruce Grove man is being remembered as an extremely strong man, and he will not soon be forgotten.
“He was just a solid man… and took care of his people,” Waddell said. “He’s in our hearts.”
Less than half of the scheduled flights took off from the school Sunday. The loss has been extremely tough on the tight-knit skydiving community.
“I think the nicest part of your day right now is when you’re in the air, because the beauty of skydiving is when you’re skydiving, you’re not thinking about anything else. So you get sort of a minute off. And then you land and it comes back at you,” Waddell said.
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