The sliding door of the airplane opens. Icy wind rushes in, blasting against Ron Selvey’s face. He looks down, carefully surveying the land below, anticipating a push from behind. In a split second, both Selvey and the stranger strapped to his back topple out of the door and out of the plane. To his surprise, his stomach doesn’t drop. He’s freefalling, but the air is pushing so forcefully against his body that he feels cushioned. The wind is harsh and cold against his cheeks, and he can barely hold a smile for the photographer trying to snap a souvenir. He and his instructor fall fourteen thousand feet through the sky.

The time passes quickly and after only a minute, Selvey feels a suffocating tug against his torso as the instructor pulls the parachute. Their bodies are instantly jerked upright and they seem to idle, spinning in slow circles. Selvey, now able to relax, notices his friend Susie out of the corner of his eye. Her parachute has also deployed, but she’s heading straight toward him, screaming at the top of her lungs. Suddenly, their parachutes collide.

The Parachute Center, located in Acampo, California, near Lodi in the Central Valley, is the largest sky diving venue in Northern California and one of the oldest sky diving operations in the United States. Inside of the hanger-like structure housing the Parachute Center offices, hundreds of framed pictures and an eclectic collection of sky diving memorabilia decorate the walls in crisscross patterns. A graying, long-haired man wearing khaki shorts, glasses, and hiking boots, bustles from station to station, checking records and keeping tabs on the customers—this daily exercise must be what keeps Bill Dause in such great shape. Dause, who owns the Parachute Center, has been in business since 1964 and is proud of his forty-three years serving up this once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“[Parachute Center] started from the one or two parachutes I had. Now, what we’re doing today is a really big operation,” he says. Dause decided to open his own skydiving facility after jumping only three times.
“There was a lot of interest and excitement to get me to come back [to skydiving],” he explains. “I never started out to be in this sport a long time. Then I thought, ‘This is really a lot of fun. Maybe I should try it again.’ It wasn’t until the third time [I jumped that] I was like ‘I love this sport.’”

Dause is especially excited that his facility has always been a destination for jumpers from across the globe looking to leap out of perfectly good airplanes. In this day and age, people seem to chase adrenaline highs. They’re constantly searching for that next activity, the next heart-pumping sport, to get their fix. Skydiving has always been the go-to pastime for beginners and seasoned adrenaline-hooked pros hoping for a unique perspective on the world and their place in it. To skydivers, the view from a freefall cannot be matched. And Dause and his highly trained employees love to be a part of it all.

Earlier this morning, May 3, Ron Selvey woke up early to his girlfriend’s insistent prodding. Hoping to sleep in on his twenty-ninth birthday, Selvey was unsure what his girlfriend, Nupur Jain, had planned. Now, he stands on the concrete floor at the Parachute Center, receiving directions from a jump-suited instructor. In fifteen minutes, Selvey will be falling thousands of feet, and his instructor is advising him on proper technique. Selvey listens carefully and prepares to put on a harness that he and his jumping partner will connect just before departing the plane.

“My girlfriend and friends completely surprised me this morning,” Selvey says with a nervous grin. “I had no idea this was coming.” The harness is strapped on tight. He takes a moment to adjust it for comfort while distracting himself with lighthearted banter from the task soon to come. “I’m a little nervous,” Selvey smiles. “We did a little wine tasting before, which helped out just a little bit. I actually have a little fear of heights, so I’m pretty excited to just get out in the air and watch that parachute open while I scream like a madman.” The group makes their way to a cart waiting just outside of the building. As the revelers are escorted across the tarmac to the small airplane, Selvey decides to give his friends some words of advice. “This is a once in a lifetime activity. You just have to face your fears, do it, [and] go to the bathroom first,” he asserts authoritatively as he and others laugh hysterically. The airplane looms a hundred yards away.

The time jumps, and before he knows it Selvey finds himself sitting in the plane on a hard bench. His heart beats thousands of times per second. Thoughts and emotions sprint through his head. “I guess, after like twenty seconds, I’m like ‘suck it up and really enjoy this experience, because it’s once in a lifetime,’” he says, psyching himself up before the jump. Selvey asks his instructor how many times he’s jumped today.

“Seven,” the instructor answers, adding that last Sunday he had to use the reserve parachute twice. Over the next few minutes the other instructors talk about their close-calls, too, building intensity in the aircraft.
They reach altitude, and Selvey’s instructor asks him to swing his feet over the seat, making it easier to connect their harnesses. They stand up together, ducking their heads low in the small plane, and walk to the window. The pairs line up, and the doors quickly slide open by the hand of a lead instructor.

Now it’s Selvey’s turn to jump. They’re up higher than he anticipated, and he watches the ground move slowly beneath the plane. Without much time to think, he falls. Seconds go by as both he and his instructor freefall. The instructor successfully deploys the parachute and Selvey feels relieved—until he notices Susie’s parachute coming toward theirs. His heart jumps. The parachutes seem to be tangled, and Selvey’s instructor yells: “We’re going to die! We’re going to die!” His voice is difficult to make out over the wind, but Selvey picks up a hint of laughter. He remains calm, not wanting to give the joke away to Susie who is screaming and panicked. The parachutes easily slide apart, Susie’s instructor gives her a kind pat on the shoulder, and the four share a laugh. Their anxiety and fear has turned into euphoria. The ground comes up to meet them slowly, and they land feet-first without a hitch.

“If you’re looking for a way to freak out your boyfriend, surprise him [with] sky diving and you’ll have him completely on a leash at your mercy,” Selvey laughs as his friends and girlfriend meet him on the ground.
Selvey, like others, had always been afraid to jump out of planes, but he says it was worth it. “If you haven’t [skydived], I highly recommend it,” he beams. “It was awesome. If you’re afraid of it, just do it!”