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MONTEGO BAY JAMAICA, MONTEGO BAY, CLIFF DIVING,
Hi, my name is Katy and for my summer vacation (7-4-09 to 7-11-09) with my dad and sister this year we decided to go to Montego Bay, Jamaica. Since I was in another country that seemed to have a lot of adventurous things to do so I wanted to try everything. When I went ziplining i thought that i would be scared since I was up 800ft in the air, but it felt so safe and easy. However, when I went Cliff diving i was so injured that I was scared to ever try it again. When I went up to the Lifegaurd I asked wat to do, all he did was point to the warning sign and said "Jump straight, feet first" so i simply walked off the edge as he counted. Since I am only 14years old and 5feet tall I take really small steps so the second I took a step off and looked down as i was falling it looked like my step was so small I was wayyy to close to the edge and as i was falling I had a panic attack on the way down. I forgot the instrustions I was told because of how freaked out I was and I landed butt first.
The second I hit the water i felt numb with absolute pain. My legs felt unmovable and were in a sitting position so I couldnt swim to the stairs. I was so scared that I was hypervenilating right as I surfaced. As I was having another panic attack I could barely hear, but there was some mumbling as people were asking "Are you okay?" about three or four times. I just kept shaking my head no to anything they asked hoping someone would understand im in pain and come help me. But the Lifeguard didn't even jump in first. Another man (who was up there too and lived in Jamaica) jumped in first and my dad yelled at the Lifegaurd to jump and help me. As they got to me the first thing the Lifeguard said was, "I told you to stand straight. You didn't go in straight." while the helpful man said, "You landed on your butt so your going to be in a lot of pain, but you'll be okay don't worry." I decided to go right home because my sister looked at my legs and they were completely red and bruising was already starting. During the 2hour ride home, the first hour i was holding back tears because of the seering pain I felt. But soon it was slowly numbing. Because I had a flight the next day I tried to relax and stay off my feet. For the next 5days the bruising was extremely back to the point where it hurt to walk and I limped at times just to move. I had blue, red, green, and yellow bruising all on the sides/back of my thighs, the inside of my thighs, and some on my leg to the side a little below the knee. I was heartbroken that I was so hurt that I could barely move because I couldn't go to my Taekwondo class for the whole next week and miss my Belt Test beacuse of the pain. The bruises are slowly going away and the pain is going even quicker. Although I didn't get hurt nearly as badly as anyone else, I was so frightened by this experience that I will never do anything like that again. Im only telling you my story because I want to warn people that even if you have all the courage in the world to do it, it is scary and has very horriable consequences if not done correctly. PLEASE think twice before doing the Cliff diving. For your own safety
P.S. I am not the kinda of person that takes any medication. Even at times I would rather sit through the pain of a cold, flu, or headaches without medicine. So during the time of my painful bruisings on my legs I only two a total of four Advils within two days and they did not work what-so-ever but I refused to take anything else. My dad offered me some strong pain killers, but I decided to deal without it. I also wanted to say that I feel like I am scard from my experience. On the drive back to the house in Jamaica, I felt like I was in a state of shock. I was holding back tears from the pain, I couldnt talk I only nodded my head, I was having a mental reply on the moment I fell over and over and over again and just thinking aboutt it made me start having a panic attack and want to cry. On the plane ride home the next day I feel asleep on the 6hour flight and i kept waking up startled because I was replying the moment in my head subconciously. I even woke with a gasp and a jump when I dreamed that my sister or dad did the jump too and i woke right before they hit the water. Still to this day I have that moment go through my head and have a reaction to just thinking about it.
Katy