I Jumped Out of a Plane and Only Mildly Blacked Out

Quick note: the events described happened well over a year ago, which feels like five minutes and also five lifetimes ago. Time’s weird like that. Just glad I finally wrote it!

So I jumped out of a plane. On purpose.

No, I wasn’t being chased. No, I hadn’t lost a bet. No, I wasn’t trying to prove anything to an ex (although, hi, Ryan 👋). I just, willingly, paid money to be pushed out of a flying aircraft at about 10,250 feet. Why? Because Skydive Toronto in Cookstown, Ontario, is apparently very persuasive. Also, very professional. And friendly. And for some reason, they let me sign a legally binding waiver with hands that were clearly better suited to writing at a nice safe keyboard than doing anything more intense than a grocery run on a busy weekend.

A great way to start the day

I arrived early in the morning, like, the kind of early where birds are still yawning, and was slotted into the first jump of the day. Bright-eyed. Bushy-braided. Questionably sane.

After signing that stack of waivers that basically all translated to “Hey, if you turn into a pancake, that’s on you,” I was ushered to a nice space of my own to re-watch the safety videos I’d already watched at home because I apparently have trust issues from having had to use a shared office fridge.

Eventually, I met my tandem skydiver—a man who looked far too calm for someone who regularly throws people out of airplanes for a living. He strapped me into a harness that said, “We’re in this together now, pal.” I was handed a tight-fitting foam cap (bless my double braids for making that possible) and a pair of goggles that fit over my glasses. Which is great, because I wanted to see exactly what was going to kill me.

We joined a solo skydiver and our pilot, and walked out to the tiniest plane I’ve ever been in. I’ve been in small planes before, but this was the first one I’d seen that might have fit in my car if its wings folded up. It had one seat—for the pilot. The rest of us sat on the floor like emotional support duffel bags, strapped in with a belt that definitely looked like it came from a 1978 Ford Country Squire.

A peaceful flight

Shockingly, once we were in the air… I was calm. Like really calm. Like “Is this enlightenment?” kind of calm. I watched the world shrink beneath us and even spotted Kempenfest happening down below. You know, the usual skydiving + craft fair vibes of a typical Sunday morning.

The solo jumper went first. Just opened the door and poof, gone. Casual. No biggie. My turn came next. We scooted over to the open door, and I was told to place my foot on the wing strut (which, for the record, sounds way less intense than it is). My biggest concern in that moment? Not death. Not fear. No. It was, “Is the wind too strong for me to physically push my leg out the door?”
Spoiler: it was strong. But I’m stronger. 💪 (Cue action movie soundtrack.)

While hanging halfway out of a plane like a penguin trying to take flight, some mysterious tiny pellets slapped me in the face and shot up my nose. To this day, I don’t know what they were. Sky dust? High-altitude glitter? Canadian micro pellet bugs? No idea. Didn’t hurt, just added to the experience.

Then—whoosh. We jumped.

And I’m free. Free fallin’!

Freefalling was… magical. Like being hugged by the wind and simultaneously socked by it. I could see farms I knew, landmarks I loved, only this time, they were getting closer at 200 km/h. My tandem skydiver had steered us over areas familiar to me, which was so thoughtful I almost forgot I was plummeting toward the Earth like a human meteor.

Then came the chute deployment.

Let me be honest: I expected it to feel like a graceful float into serenity. Instead, I got body-slammed by a parachute and immediately introduced to the concept of “harness pain.” All the air left my lungs like a dramatic Sylizan woman swooning. My tandem skydiver whooped—clearly impressed by the slap we just took—and loosened the harness to let me breathe again.

It still hurt. A lot. Like, one of the most intense pains I’d experienced. Plus, I was still dangling like a very confused sack of potatoes with straps pressing into all the sore points. But hey, the view was nice!

Then, mid-conversation about my favourite honey store (shoutout to Innisfil Creek Honey—sponsor me? 😜), I passed out. Yep. Just… zonked. Apparently, I was “really out” for a solid two minutes.

When I woke up, I felt oddly refreshed. Immediately back in the game. My tandem skydiver and I chatted and laughed for the remaining 3 minutes while I tried not to dwell on the bruising, the pain from which, I’d apparently partially slept off. This part was great. We glided the rest of the way down like graceful Canada geese, only without the honking, hissing, and messy stuff.

Getting grounded

The landing was absurdly smooth. Like, landing-on-a-pillow smooth. Immediately, someone from the team checked on me, because apparently unconsciousness is a red flag or something. 🤷‍♀️ I assured them I was fine, then walked calmly to the bathroom and violently threw up.

Ten minutes later, face washed and dignity semi-restored, I rejoined my tandem skydiver in the hangar, where he met me with a huge high five. We laughed. We bonded. We shared a moment of mutual respect—and mild internal bleeding. Okay, not really, but describing bruises again was starting to sound so everyday.

Rejoining the world

I headed home, stopping at Innisfil Creek Honey on the way. Felt like the right thing to do, considering the circumstances.

When I got back to my place, I sent a quick “I survived!” text to friends and family and then immediately flopped into bed to rest and catch my breath. Except my breath had gone rogue, like a lost child at the mall—elusive and clearly avoiding me.

My painful sides and chest were making it hard to take a full breath. Somewhere in my sinuses, the pellets from pre-freefall were still staging a rebellion, forcing me into a sneeze-fest every time I moved. My nose? Running like a faucet. This wasn’t exactly helping the growing discomfort from what I’d soon discover were gnarly dark bruises across my ribs and inner thighs. Apparently, getting slammed into a harness like a human stress ball is less than ideal. Let’s just say it was a thrilling combination of constant sneezing and not being able to breathe deeply without feeling like I’d just done a thousand push-ups.

I made a quick grocery store run to pick up a few things. Interestingly, this was clearly the real heart-pounding activity of the day, according to my Fitbit heart rate monitor. My heart rate was way higher bringing in my purchases than jumping from a plane! And, because my day wasn’t already jam-packed with excitement, I decided to take a COVID test before seeing my sister the next day. You know, just in case the sneezing was viral and not some rogue pellet leftover from my skydiving adventure. The joy of shoving a giant Q-tip up your nose and revisiting the trauma of 2020—what’s not to love?

Well, shocker: I’m probably the first person in history to get excited over the results of taking the COVID test itself and not the actual test results. Why? Because the swab, apparently, did something magical. It dislodged the mystery pellet from my sinuses. Suddenly, I could breathe! No more sneezing! It was a miracle. And so, I carried on with my day as a new person—one who had jumped out of a plane, had an unintentional mid-air nap, and survived a microscopic pellet assault.

Would I do it again?

Yeah I would! It was incredible. Sure, it wasn’t the “perfect” experience, but that’s the beauty of the second or third try, right? I do hear that it’s Third Time’s a Charmer (Nudge, nudge… See what I did there?).

Would I go back to Skydive Toronto? Absolutely. 100%. The team there was amazing! Professional, safe, and somehow made freefalling feel like a breeze. Skydiving is a wild, beautiful, slightly painful, and utterly chaotic experience. And you know what? I loved every messy bit of it. 💜