The Worst Fall Ever!
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Falling through the sky, with his arms and legs flailing like a helpless infant, Jake Brown knew he was in for a world of hurt. 50-feet above a solid wood floor, with nothing to brace his fall, Brown fixed his eyes on the ground and prepared his body for impact. When his 5-foot-6 body slammed into the ground it looked like he died, or at best was paralyzed, and when he didn’t get up from the fall after several minutes every spectators fears became a possible reality.
This is what the X-Games is. A death defying, stunt junkie's best friend, out of control, but somehow in control, competition to see who can go fly in the air the highest and longest. Last night Jake Brown took that idea to the next level.
Brown was already in first place in the Skateboarding Big Air competition when he began his drop on the 80-foot ramp. Everything looked perfect as he flew over the 70-foot gap and completed a 720, which had never been completed in competition. But after landing the trick everything went wrong.
Brown landed in the middle on the ramp and needed to get to the right to complete his next trick, a 540, on the quarterpipe. As he tried to move to the right his board wiggled below him and he began to lose control. Right before he hit the lip of the pipe he flung his board away from him, knowing he couldn’t land the trick. But at that same moment his body began to sail away from the safety of the quarterpipe and into the middle of the solid wood floor.
With his landing spot missed Brown turned his head around and looked, with wide-eyed horror, at the ground below him. He fell,45-feet (a little over a 3 story building), and slammed down on the wood. His legs slammed onto the boarding first, which made his shoes pop off his feet. His head and back then hit the floor, leaving Brown motionless.
I seriously thought he was dead, broke his back or broke both legs,” said fellow skater Pierre-Luc Gagnon. “That was the gnarliest slam I've ever seen in my life.”
Everyone in the stadium, and everyone watching on television thought the same thing. There was no way anyone could walk away from that fall, but Brown did. After several minutes where he didn’t move, Brown got up and walked off the ramp, with a little assistance. He didn’t look good, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered.
On Aug.5 07 he was relased from the hospital with a broken wrist, bruised lung and liver, and some spinal damage due to the comperession. But nothing that will keep him off the board.
