BASE Jumper Jeb Corliss on Dedicating His Life to Human Flight

it's strange. You have to kind of live long enough for life to kind of teach you like how to actually live it. It's strange. It's a weird experience. But I feel really grateful now where I didn't when I was younger, which is strange.

had this I'm going to prove you wrong. Attitude from the age of six, when you were in the car with your aunt, right, take me back to that moment.

I was like six years old, and I remember seeing birds standing on a telephone pole, like on the wire, and I remember them jumping off and opening their wings and starting to fly, and I remember going like, you know, when I get older, I'm doing that, you know. And my aunt, you know, kind of looked out the window and saw what I was looking at, and she's just like, oh, you know, you're really young. But when you get older,

you're gonna realize that's just not physically possible. And it's interesting because now looking back, it's really fascinating when people tell you you can't do something right, when they're saying you can't do this or you can't do that, really what they're saying is I can't do it. What they're telling you is something that they're incapable of. And it's really interesting because when you say you want to do something,

you know, they don't know what you're capable of. They don't know who you are, they don't know what you can do, but they do know who they are. They do know what they can do.

little little kid. But it's interesting because you know, I had my first near death experience when I was six, and it told me free that it's complicated, you know, I was. My parents were art dealers when I was a child, and they used to travel to foreign countries like India, Nepal, Pakistan, and at five, we went on a year long trip through India and Nepal, and when I was in New Delhi, India, I got like, I think we're like towards the end of the trip, so

I turned. I went from five and turned six while it was in India, and I got something called the Deli belly, which is like a really aggressive form of a mubic dysentery and it, you know, I my parents took me to a doctor who told them I was going to die, that he could do nothing for me, and that I was not going to make it. I'd already lost over a third of my body weight and I was already in a really bad way. Amoebic dysentery and New Delhi is really bad. Like it's super serious.

It's a it's seriously the worst place you can get it, one of the worst, and it's serious for an adult, but for a child, you know, a five six year old kid, it's super serious. And and like I said, the first doctor they took me to who told them I was going to die, like they're like, there's nothing we can do. And they didn't like that. Obviously my

parents like, okay, second opinion on that one. You know, obviously they were not going So they took me to another doctor and and this was a more western doctor, and they said, you know, they're, well, this bad. We're not going to pretend like it isn't, you know, but we're gonna do what we can do. And I didn't end up dying, but I did go through three months of serious hallucinations and like like serious problems. I mean, it was it wasn't a joke and I remember it

like I can still remember going through the suffering. And it's weird because after that I realized that I was going to die. I just knew it. I mean, it's coming. Death is coming for me.

still children. You know. I've also met, like you've met kids who have experienced near death experiences and understand death, and they are, in my opinion, adults. You know, once you once you truly grasp what death is, and once you truly accept that it's coming for you, you grow up. You know, you become you understand it's you're forced to

grow up well. And it's and it's a philosophical understanding because once you truly grasp death, and you truly grasp it's coming to an end, all of a sudden, the little bit of time you get to exist matters so much more. All of a sudden, every moment becomes so

crucially important to you because you realize they're limited. You know, so at six years old, to understand that my life was limited and I only had a little bit of time to get shit done, it made me, all of a sudden, become much more focused on getting shit done.

exist right. And I think in that process they have a tendency to crush dreams and kind of kick dreams out of you and kind of make you conform and fit into a mold that they think you need to exist on this planet and succeed in the future. And it's not I don't think they're being it's not a negative thing. They're not trying to do something bad to you. They're actually trying to help you without really realizing that what they're actually doing is kind of breaking your.

have to break bones. You have to get hurt, you have to like, you know, run in that race and lose, you know, and this has to happen to you because that's what helps you learn something right. And so what happened to me is through my like younger years, like grade school years and then early teens, I had been so heavily broken by just the society in which I

lived and by the people who I was around. They just kind of crushed me into the dirt, to the point where I no longer remember any of the dreams I had. I no longer had dreams, I no longer had desires, I no longer wanted anything.

I would have survived. And what happened to me is I was in a kind of a darkened state, really bad place, and I was sitting on a couch, flicking through endless television channels, you know, nothing, not caring about anything, and all of a sudden, something came on the television that just instantly just caught my attention, and it was a man standing on the edge of a cliff, you know, just standing there. And I remember going huh, like instantly,

what's that guy doing? And I was saying, like, looks back at the camera, he sticks his tongue out, and then he jumps off the cliff into a gainer, and all of a sudden, that image from childhood kind of flushed back in that dream of like flying all of a sudden, like was kind of reignited, and as I saw him, like, oh my god, I've been lied to my entire life. That's what I was talking about. People are doing it like that's that's exactly what I was

talking about. And this sense of like it felt almost like electricity, like I could feel the hair standing on end. I became like super like excited, and I'm like, that's it. That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna do that for the rest of my life until it kills me period. I will never stop. I will do whatever it takes.

That's it. That's what I'm doing. So why I say base jumping saved my life is because you know, you go through like peaks and valleys with depression, like you kind of come out of it and you'll be kind of okay, and then you drop back into it and you kind of come back out and you drop back in and during that period for the next two years in mile because you can't just start base jumping. It

doesn't work like that. You know, as a sixteen year old, you know, I would I call every drop zone like I want to base jump, and they just like laughed, like, ah.

The best way I can describe it is imagine me trapped in a dark cave, right with no light. You're in darkness, there is no possibility of anything. And then all of a sudden, what base jumping became was this little tiny light off in the distance, right, and I could see this light. Now that I was like, well, let's go towards the light, like what is that? And that was base jumping for me, right and on that

journey towards that light because it takes time. You can't just get there like You're gonna have to go climb those little hills and climb those little mountains and claw your way towards the light. And what would happen is every now and then during that process because it took me. I didn't get to do my first skuydive until I was eighteen. I didn't get to do my first base

jump un till I was twenty one. So we're talking about, you know, five years of time for me to even get to the place where I could do a base jump.

edge and I'd like, no, don't waste it. Like, if you're gonna kill yourself anyway, do something with your death, you know, you go base jumping, like get that goal. And that's what made me hang on during those really dark periods where things just felt like they were crushing me and I just felt like what's the point and like life just seems so utterly pointless. And then in the process of training right because you like I said,

it takes time. You have to do you know, one hundred and fifty to two hundred skydivees before you can even begin base jumping, right and to get there, you know, And at the time, I didn't have a lot of money. I worked at a movie theater as a projectionist, you know, making you know, minimum wage, which was like three twenty five at an hour at the time. You know, yeah, it's nothing. So you know, I would save up money, go do a skydive. Save up money, go to a skydive.

So it took me almost let's see, it was from eighteen to twenty one to basically get my license, which you know, most people can do that in a couple of weekends, but I didn't have the money, so I had like literally save up jump, save up jump. So it took a long time, which was good. It was actually good for me because by the time I got to base jumping, I didn't want to die anymore. All of a sudden, by the time, you know, at twenty one, I wasn't suicidal anymore. I'd become super happy. I'd met

a bunch of people who I enjoyed their company. I found people who are like minded. I started making friends, and it started in the community, well community, and more than that, I just I get the purpose. Like I mean, I think that's what most people like. They're like, oh, you know, whatever is John Lennon, Like, you know, meaning of life is being happy? You know, No, not really,

the meaning of life is purpose. You have to have a reason to be here, a reason to eat eat, eat food, drink water, breathe oxygen, a reason to exist. There has to be a reason. You need some kind

of purpose. You need meaning, right and then once you have meaning and you have purpose, then that gives you the drive to go out there and do that purpose, do what that is and in the process of striving, especially if it's a difficult thing, if it's a scary thing, if it's something that can like break you and kill you and do horrible, awful things to you. For some reason,

that struggle is what brings happiness. By succeeding and overcoming those obstacles and doing things really difficult and literally facing stuff that you don't know if you can do it. You're like, I don't know if I have what it takes to make this happen, right, And then you do it, and you're like, and that sense of accomplishment, that sense of doing something really difficult and really painful and something that was really hard, right, and you struggled to get there.

That accomplishment then brings happiness. Happiness is like a byproduct, like a really nice byproduct of accomplishing a difficult task. That's really what it comes from. People don't understand. You can't be at peak happiness one hundred percent of the time, otherwise it's not peak happiness anymore. It just becomes normal. So then you get to base jumping and you start doing what it is and you start, you know, experiencing horrific, horrendous shit like things that. I mean, dude, by this

way is as dangerous as you think. Base jumping is as dangerous as people assume they have no clue. It is lethal and scary on a level that is impossible to comprehend, and like it. I've done a lot of dangerous stuff in my life. I ride motorcycles, I climb, surf big waves, dive with sharks, you know, I do all this stuff. I skydiving. And what you learn when you start doing these more dangerous activities is there actually

not that bad. You know, with the right training and the right preparation, you can actually do them in a relatively safe way, right where they're no longer this like horror show where you're like scared all the time, where it actually becomes enjoyable and fun. Base jumping is the first thing that I got into that is not only every bit as scary and dangerous as I thought it was, but after a decade of doing it, you're like, oh my god, I had no idea like this.

I mean literally, the first day you can't even get the weight off the rat grey.

Fear is the same way fear. You don't just start, you know, by jumping off the Eiffel Tower and doing a double reverse flip. Right, that's not how it starts. It starts with a tandem skydive. Right. You go do a tam so you're hooked to an instructor. You get he's in charge of everything. All you have to do is go for the ride. You get to have the experience of what it's like to be in the plane, look out the door, step out of an air craft

of twelve thousand feet, be in free fall. You know, then you're not You don't have to worry about controlling the parachute. So that gives you your first sense of fear, of like, oh, this is what this is? Okay, I suppose.

that comes from desensitizing yourself to it. It actually makes you stronger. And and that's what fear is. Fear is you expose yourself to small fear in the beginning that isn't actually dangerous, right, It's just things that scare you but won't actually hurt you. That's the first fear you deal with, the fears that won't actually inflict physical harm to you, but just give you that sensation of fear.

it for some reason. Yes, it was scary, but it wasn't like life altering or life changing. And actually it almost let me down a little bit, like I was. I was like, man, I was expecting this to be a little bit more like. It just didn't seem I'm like, I thought this was gonna be a lot like more like life altering is what I thought. But it wasn't. It was kind of scary, but it wasn't like you know, this one. So I find this little antenna, like always kind of looking at it, and I'm like, I wonder

if that's tall enough. But I always thought it was like seventy five feet tall. Looked like this tiny little thing on this hill. I'm like, that's not high enough.

holy shit, that's like you can base jump that. That's high enough, like just high enough, but it's high enough. Like I'm like, I'm gonna go base jump that, you.

I had two of them. One was Todd Shoeboth and Anne Helliwell, and I called up Annie and I said, hey, you know, I found this antenna and I had gone there and I'd scouted it out and I'd figured out exactly how high I could jump from. I couldn't jump from the top because there was antenna stuff. So I had to jump from under the antenna stuff, so it was like two hundred and sixty feet, so you know, I needed some information. I was told never to like free fall under three hundred feet, that I needed to

use a static line. Blah blah blah. It's all complicated. Shit. I don't want to get too into that because it's too complicated. But I called her to ask her a very simple, like technical question, and the question was, Hey, if I use a forty eight inch pilot shoot and I do a go and throw, how long will it take my parachute open? And she's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you trying to jump off of? And I'm like, oh, it's a three hundred foot antenna And I was explained.

She's like whoa wait, okay and antenna shaul. Does it have guy wires or is it free standing? And I'm like, it has guy wires. She's like, okay, don't jump that. It's like straight up, I'm telling you right now, if you jump an antenna that low that has guy wires and you get a ninety left or right, you're going to die. Like that's it. It's going to kill you. Do not jump that antenna. It's a bad jump. Just don't even go anywhere near it. And I'm like, Okay,

that's really great information. That's not what I asked you. The question is if I do a going through with a forty eight inch pilot, shoot, how long will it take my parachute open? And she's like, Jeb, shall do not jump that. She'll you are not ready for something like that. And she's like, and when you do get ready for something like that, you won't jump it because you'll know better. She's like, so don't go jump that. And I'm like, how long will it take my parachute open?

She's like, Jeb, probably about one hundred and fifty feet. I'm like, perfect click, and I'm like, that's it. One hundred and fifty feet. I'm jumping for two hundred and sixty. That gives me around what ninety feet to land. I'm good, I'm gonna do this, right. I end up going out there. So it's it's complicated. It's such a complicated story. But at the time, I was living in my parents' guest house, right, So that's you know, that's kind of how I was

able to like survive. I would work, make my money go do that, and I didn't have rent because I was leaving my parents' guest house. I was leaving to go do this jump, and my mom saw me with my rig. She knew I only had five base trimps. I was obviously just knew, and she's like, what is there to jump around here? So she sees me getting in my car with my rig and she's like hey, she runs out. She liked, what are you doing. I'm like, oh,

I found this three hundred foot antenna. I'm gonna go base jump in She's like, whoa, whoa, exaid, what are you talking about? She had listened to me long enough, like you know, you're talking to your parents, You're like telling them and explaining things to them. So she understood just enough to know that that was a really bad idea at my skill level. Right that I was not that she knew the lower things were the more dangerous. It was that that's three hundred feet. That's really low.

And she's like, no, jeb, I don't I don't think that's a good idea. And I'm like, yeah, well I'm doing it. And she's like, Okay, I've never told you not to do anything in your life. You know, I've always supported you in everything. So I'm telling you right now, if you do this, you need to find a new place to live. That's how serious this is. And I'm like, okay, you do what you need to do. I'm gonna do what I need to do. And I just got in my car and left. I'm like, if I have to

move out, I'll move out. I don't care. Nothing's gonna stop me from doing this, right. I called when I called my best buddy at the time, and I said, Hey, I'm gonna go jump this three hundred foot antenna. I'd like you to come and do ground crew for me in case I break a leg or get hurt, so I have someone to call the you know, call help, right And he responded with I'm not gonna come watch you kill yourself, Jeb Zaul. If you're doing this, you're

doing this on your own. You're gonna do this by yourself. I Am not gonna come there. And I'm like, okay, that's fine. Then I do it alone, you know, And I'm like, there's nothing that's gonna stop me from doing this. That's it.

but the week before it was really cold. Tonight was actually a nice, warm night, like it was spring, like the temperature was just starting to change, and I start walking up the hill and it's pitch black. I can't turn lights on because I don't want people seeing me going up the hill. And all of a sudden, I just hear this sound of it's a fucking rattlesnake, and it's like right next to me, dude, and I'm like, oh shit.

There are hundreds of rattlesnakes. They are fucking everywhere. And this hillside has one road and around the road is filled with cactus, so it's all cactus. So when I jump this thing, I have to land on this road in the dark, covered in fucking rattlesnakes, and around it are cactus everywhere. So I'm just like, this is insane, Like what am I doing? That's actually not what I was saying. Well, it's funny as I was tricking myself into doing it. So what I was saying is I'm

not doing this. So I'm walking up. I'm like, I'm just gonna walk up there and I'm just gonna go take a look. That's all I was doing, right, So I'm walking, walking, walking, and I'm like pushing rattlesnakes out of way, and I'm like they just keep going off. I get to the fence, which is a razor wire fence. I take a jacket, throw it over the razor wire,

climb over the road wire, get into the antenna. The antenna is so tiny, it's three hundred feet so it has one light in the middle and one light on top, and the actual ladder's on the outside. So I'm climbing on the outside of an antenna doing this with no protection. You fall, you die, you know, And I'm just climbing this ladder and as I'm climbing, I'm just like, I am not going to do this, Like this is not happening,

like I Am not doing this. As I keep moving and as I'm going further, my heart is literally beating in my chest in a way that it's impossible to describe it because it actually feels like it's moving up and into my throat, like it's actually trying to Yeah, it's like my heart's trying to escape out my mouth like it wants it doesn't want anything to do with this. It wants to get away from me. It's like, what

are you doing? And the horror in fear gets more and more intense because i know I'm gonna do it, even though I'm telling myself, no, I'm not gonna do this. I'm gonna wait, I'm not gonna do this. I get to the two hundred and sixty foot mark. The antenna's shaped like a like an a, and I get inside the antenna and I'm sitting on one bar with my feet on the other two and I'm looking down. I can see through the antenna all the way to the ground, but it's really dark, it's like super pitch black, and

I'm sitting there. I'm kind of like looking out and it's totally calm, not a breath of air, literally zero wind, and I'm looking down the freeway and I just see cars just snaking off in both directions, and it was so surrealistic, Like it's so surreal it's hard to even your mind goes into the super strange place because I'm sitting inside an antenna three like to well, two hundred and sixty feet off the ground, just watching cars pitch black. I can't see the road I'm supposed to land on.

I can't see shit. And I'm just like and I start telling myself, like, you know, I'm not ready for this. You know, maybe after I do, you know, I go Norway, I do some big jumps, maybe I'll get ready for this and I'll come back. I'm not doing this. As I'm telling myself that I get my pilot shoot out, and I'm like starting to get my pilot shoot ready, and I'm like, there's no way I'm doing this. As I slide out the antenna and I'm like hanging out and I'm like looking down and right then I'm like,

I am not going to do this. As I push off, and I remember pushing off And this has only happened to me a couple times in my life, and usually it's during accidents. This is the only time I've ever had this happen when it wasn't an accident. And what happened is I push off and I throw the pilot

choote and then everything freezes. Time just stops, like everything's just and it's literally time all of a sudden just distorts and starts stretching, and all of a sudden, seconds are stretched into what feel like minutes, Like it's the most bizarre experience when all of a sudden, time just goes.

I can see the cactuses. All of a sudden, I'm like my senses all of a sudden became super hyper aware, and as I'm looking down, I see the little red light that marks the center of the antenna. Now I'm just watching it slowly start coming, and all of a sudden, I pass the little red light that marks the middle. And as I pass that light, my brain all of a sudden does these like really quick calculations and it's like, wait a minute, You've just gone more than half the antenna.

Your parachute hasn't opened yet, You've gone more than one hundred and fifty feet. Oh shit, you're going in like uh oh. And I remember seeing the razor wire fence which was going to be my impact point, and I see it coming and I'm like, oh shit. And I remember bringing my hands up and by bracing for impacts like I'm gonna be like, okay, I'm hitting this friggin like razor wire fence. So I bring my arms up, and right as I do this, I hear this sound of velcrow going and what that is is at the

back of the shrivel flap of my parachute. It goes, and then all of a sudden, my parachute opens. Dude. It felt like someone had taken me and placed me against a brick wall and took a baseball bat and just hit me in the chest with it as hard as they could and literally just like boom. And the impact of opening was so strong that it almost knocked me unconscious. And I'm like cool, and I'm like holy shit, And all of a sudden, I'm so low. I don't

have time to grab toggles. I just grab one rear riser. I'm turning as I impact the asphalt of the road,

and I bounce off the asphalt sideways. So I hit the asphalt, bounce, and I'm laying in the grass and I remember my entire body just vibrating, and then I remember like standing up and I could see everything and I can actually hear little insects crawling in the grass, I mean, and I was so oh dude, I was connected and wired to the reality and the universe in which I existed in a way that I've never felt. I mean, it was so powerful, and all of a sudden, I'm like, that's it. I'm a base jumper.

that's it, I'm done with this. And the doctor even said he walks into the you know when I'm in the emergency room and I'm in he comes in. He's like, oh, I bet you're never gonna do that again. And I'm just like, uh, actually, the only two things in the world are going to prevent me from base jumping or quadriplegia or death. Anything short of that, I'm gonna keep jumping. And he just looked at me and he's like, whoa, He's all right, Well, I guess you'll keep jumping then,

you know. But that that, at that stage in my life, there was just nothing. I mean, I didn't care. The only reason I was getting better, the reason I went to rehab, the reason I worked out and fixed my back and fixed the injuries, was so I could jump again. That's all I cared about. That's all there was. So that was, you know, in ninety nine nine, And then the one you're talking about was in twoenty and twelve. I was filming for Real Sports on HBO. At that

stage was like thirteen fourteen years. I'd already been earning a living as a base jumper. I'd already done countless documentaries, I'd already done countless TV shows, and now I was already filming and I'm doing a show now for real sports now.

I'm a human being, and human beings make mistakes. And that's one of the reasons why base jumping and especially wingsuit proximity flying are so dangerous. Because you are a human You're gonna make a mistake and when you do in this sport, it's gonna be serious. That's all there is to it. And the best way to put it is, yes, we can go through the list of mistakes, but I'm a human being. I messed up. I impacted flat solid granite.

You know, I was flying at an angle. But the people keep arguing if it's granite or you know, cape stone, whatever it is, it's flat solid rock, right flats a lot of rock. I impact it over termed at one hundred and twenty plus miles an hour. Okay, I hit it terminal velocity, which to bounce off flat rock at terminal velocity is not a survivable accident. You will die like I had a get ripped in half doing this exact

same thing. So you know, I impacted, And when I hit I knew I was gonna die like it was an unsurvivd It was so strange because I'm coming in. I've set up a target. It's a balloon coming in to hit the target. I think I'm good. Everything looks fine from my perspective, and everything's looking okay, and I'm coming from my target and I hit my target. But as I hit my target, all of a sudden, I'm

tumbling and I can feel my legs are crushed. And I didn't even realize I was gonna impact until after I impacted, and all of a sudden, I'm tumbling and my legs are crushed and I can feel them crushed. Like I'm like, my legs are gone, like I don't have legs. I'm like, I'm destroyed. I'm gonna die. Like there's I realized instantly I just went in. I just impacted flat rock at terminal. I mean I was I was building speed, like I was going as fast as I could go, and I'm like, I'm dead. There's no

way I can live. And my brain instantly split into two separate places, you know, And this is where time distortion happens again, where time just goes and stretches out. But this time the time distortion was even more bizarre because my brain went two different places. So one part of my brain was doing calculations. It was all math.

It's like, okay, you're tumbling, regain control. So I'm regaining control with a broken wingsuit, destroyed body, and I'm still I have to fly over a series of three ledges or die. So my body goes into just automatic Okay, what do you need to do to survive? And it's just that's all being calculated. Okay, ledge, you gotta get over that ledge. Okay, there's no lege. You gotta get over that ledge. Oh you gotta get over that ledge.

You gotta You don't have the altitude to pull, and my brain is just doing this, and then another part of my brain is having a philosophical conversation with me, and it's just like, huh, well, you're dead. It's unsurvivable. You just impacted flat rock at terminal. You can't survive. It's unsurvivable. You're going to die. So question is, how do you want to die? Do you want it to be slow, agonizing and painful or do you want to be quick? Those are your two choices, But you're gonna die.

So I could either pull and land and slowly bleed to death while I'm waiting for a rescue, which I know from experience being part of quite a few of them, that if they send a chopper, it's probably forty five minutes, maybe an hour, is how long it will take for them to get me off that mountain. I will be dead probably within seconds, minutes, maybe a half hour if I'm lucky, depending on the damage to my legs. But I was sure that they were completely shattered and destroyed,

and I was gonna bleed out almost certainly. So I'm like, huh, I can suffer for maybe a half an hour and die, or I could just not open go head first and just be done with it. And it was an incredibly difficult decision to make. It'd be like somebody coming to you and having a gun and saying I'm gonna shoot you in the head or the stomach. You get to die one way. You want to suffer, you want to be quick, and you have to make the decision. Am I gonna suffer through this? Or am I just gonna

make it be finished? Because I'm not gonna live. And what's interesting is that the part of my brain doing all the calculations all of a sudden is like, Okay, I cleared the third ledge. I had as much altitude as I was ever gonna have. It's like you pull now or you die. This is the moment. And the part of my brain that was kind of thinking about this is like, well, you know, let's see how much time you can get. You know, if it's one minute,

I want it. If it's two minutes, I want it, If it's ten minutes, I want I don't even care if it's suffering in pain. I just want time. All of a sudden, I realized the only thing that actually matters in life is time. That's it. As long as you're alive, anything can happen, anything's possible. But the second you're dead, that's it. It's the end of all possibilities. It's finished for you. So I decided, you know what,

ye I want the time. So I pulled and I had a second and a half canopy ride with line twists impacted a second time, broke myself some more, and then I laid there suffering in pain. And it was like one hundred and twenty degrees that day. I was like breaking records for heat, and I'm covered in black and I'm being cooked alive, and I was white. My legs were broken open and a blood was everywhere, and it was just it was It was so painful and

so horrible. But I will say this, you know, going from a suicidal teen right who didn't want to be here, who then went through that experience and chose life, you know, and that type of situation, it's absolutely fascinating to me. And I feel blessed. I feel very fortunate that I got to a place in my life where I was so content and so happy and understood that life is what matters. That time you get, that little time you

get to exist is what means something. And you know, if you're suffering, if you're in a dark place, just realize, dude, hang on. You never know. You know, as long as you're alive, there's the possibility of better things. But the second it's over, it's over, man, and it's over forever.