She had walked into the hotel “very much like a lady,” in a skirt, carrying shopping bags. The front desk asked her if she would like to leave her bags there. “No, I might forget to pick them up,” she bluffed, calculating how to get through the tight checks that stop B.A.S.E jumpers conquering the oh-so tempting target.
In the disabled toilet, she put together her kit – taken apart and in different bags to make it look like climbing gear. She changed out of the skirt. Later, she was arrested, but only held for four hours. They had nothing to charge her with.
Her eyes gleam as she tells the tale.
Karina likes flying. She likes heights. She likes fear, which she believes is a positive thing which makes her stronger. The 31-year-old blonde, slim, sporty Norwegian buzzes with enthusiasm. She says she is “lucky” and “lives in a dream world”.
She was three years old when she started looking up. Karina got the outdoor spirit from her father, a ski instructor. On walks, he would take her with him.
“He cut two holes for my legs in his climbing backpack. I said I was scared because it was high, and he just told me to look up.”
She began craning her neck then, searching for things to jump off.
Karina’s first B.A.S.E jump (using only one parachute – ‘no second chance’) – was at Twin Falls in Idaho, USA. “It didn’t really give me anything”. She was too scared, she says. Still, she must have liked it enough. She jumped around 400 more times from Building, Antenna, Span or Earth (the four categories of fixed object which qualify for inclusion in the extreme sport).
Her last jump – in Switzerland last November – was “supersafe”. A routine demonstration skydive, from a plane, over water, with friends.
It nearly killed her.
She shattered both her legs – “25 open fractures in both my femurs and knees and everything”. She lost three and a half litres of blood in 45 minutes. “They were about to lose me because of that.” A rescue helicopter took her to hospital, where she woke up two days later to be told she would never walk again. For one month she could not be moved. Then she spent four months in a hospital at home in Norway, half a year in a wheelchair, and a year in rehab.
Karina has not jumped since.
That day, her equipment had been checked. It was working properly. “We did everything right,” she says.
She and her friends were dressed in wingsuits – a ‘batman’ outfit which gives you the ability to fly like a bird. “We were flying, six friends together. It was a beautiful jump, we were just laughing, and I could see the smile of my friend as I went over and under her.”
Karina had to land in a different place because she was filming. As she opened the parachute it created a tension knot on the line. “I immediately realised,” she said.
“This is one of the things that kill B.A.S.E jumpers. I knew I was going to die.”
She hit the ground – solid rock – at more than 100kph.
She describes this as “lucky”.
Looking up again.
Lucky to have smashed both legs and become reliant on a wheelchair?
Lucky to be alive, she explains. Lucky that there was a rescue helicopter there because it was an event. And lucky that she had hit rock, so she didn’t roll.
“By hitting this rock I shattered my legs but saved my back and my head and it saved my life. There is no point in thinking about what if.”
She felt sad and depressed “for a week”.
She had always used her body to let out frustration. Now, when she needed it most, it was no use as an outlet.
She thought to herself: “I am going to be stuck here in this chair so if I am sad it is just going to punish me.”
“I wouldn’t regret anything, not one single jump, not even the jump that made me sit in the chair.”
“There are a lot of good moments even if you are in a wheelchair.”
Remarkably, she gradually began to walk. Her progress has been slow. She moves stiffly, with a severe limp, and gets tired very quickly. The best way is to look ahead little by little so that she is not disappointed. If someone had told her a year ago that she would only have reached this point by now, she may not have been able to cope with it.
Yet she is walking. And she gives the impression that she is not done with recovering yet.
What keeps her going through the dark days?
Friends visit her from all over the world. There was not one day in hospital without someone there. “In a way I almost feel obligated to them.”
And then there is The Hand of Fatima project.
Before Karina’s accident she and a team had travelled to Mali, to jump off the Hand of Fatima, a huge Red Sandstone pillar Karina had spotted in a magazine.
“I was captured by the beauty of the rock.”
Le Main de Fatima is Mali’s highest peak, on the edge of an imposing desert. The team had planned to film there as part of a documentary. But when they realised how much material there was they began a film about that one jump. The proceeds, they decided, should go to help the villagers of Daari, who lived in the shadow of the rock.
“It was amazing to see how poor they were, and still they were able to keep their smile,” says Karina.
With a wide-eyed smile herself, she remembers that place, that freedom. The best jumps are about the journey, she says – the more difficult the better. “The jump is just a bonus.”
The Hand of Fatima was difficult. Karina suffered two severe heatstrokes in temperatures of up to 45 degrees. The water supply the team had ordered did not arrive. They climbed up the rock the first day – a 12 hour trek – to be met by darkness and have to camp out overnight. In the morning they awoke to a sandstorm. Exhausted, demoralized, and knowing there was no chance of jumping that day, they returned to the camp.
“The mountain had claimed all our energy. To us we had failed.”
Waiting for them, having sat under a bush at the bottom of the rock for hours, were the children.
“We met all the smiles of the kids and they were clapping and cheering on us.”
“And we realised that for them it was a dream just climbing to the top of the mountain.”
“It was those kids that gave us the motivation to go back up.”
So the team tried again.
Standing at the top the next day, Karina didn’t feel good. She was dizzy and unconcentrated after the long wait. She was scared of being made ill by the heat again. She didn’t feel strong. “I didn’t feel like I was on top of the jump. I had control, I was just not where I wanted to be.”
Against her instinct though, she went for it.
Things went wrong, and a wind gust, combined with Karina’s fear sent the jump out of control.
“I remember seeing the cliff and thinking that I am going in.”
“I remember thinking I am going to die on this jump.”
She had to turn away from the wall. “Fight it, fight it, fight it,” she was thinking.
She slowly turned the wingsuit, knowing then that she faced the problem of the boulder field below.
At last, she managed to land the jump, opening her parachute lower than she had ever done before. She broke her wrist and her tailbone on landing.
“I was angry with myself for putting myself in the situation. I was relieved, and happy of course.”
After Daari, Karina appreciated the little things.
“It makes you realise how lucky you are to be able to travel the world and live your dream.”
“It makes you open up your eyes.”
The film The Hand of Fatima has won twelve first prizes so far around the world, providing money to build a well in Daari, and a school nearby. The children have been given bikes so they can get to school.
“It feels very rewarding,” says Karina. She is just frustrated that she has not been able to be more involved because of her accident.
When you can no longer walk, that also makes you appreciate the little things, she says. Her perspective on life has changed: “The simple things are no longer simple. It would take 15 minutes to get out of the bed.”
“Going to the bathroom on my own was a great victory.”
After all this, still her infectious enthusiasm for jumping shines through.
Why does she do it? Why jump? Isn’t she scared?
“Yes I am scared, of course I am scared; I am human. The difference is that I like it, I want to have that feeling.”
“Maybe for a lot of people it paralyses them. In a way for me it is the opposite. I search for the feeling.”
And the risk?
“You have to accept the fact that this might kill you. I think I have broken almost every bone in my body. I have lost a lot of friends along the way.”
It is a question of balance, she explains.
“If pleasure is higher than the risk, then go for the jump.”
- An hour-long film, 20 Seconds of Joy, has been made of Karina’s experience. It opens in Munich next month.
