Nobody Asked You to Jump...

Let me make this clear.

ACCIDENTS HAPPEN!

You are right, nobody asked me to jump. Nobody was encouraging me, no one pushed me and no one blackmailed me. I chose to jump. That was my decision. But what I didn't choose to happen was the fall to go wrong. I also especially don't appreciate people saying to me; "it was your choice to jump," "what were you expecting," "you were stupid," "well it's not like it was an accident you made the decision and caused this upon yourself..." I didn't make that decision to land feet first. I didn't want that to happen, trust me. That was not my fault.

People think that if you are training to be a stunt woman that maybe you have a screw loose, you're an adrenaline junkie, a wild child, that you don't care. Some stunt individuals are like this, they take it to the extreme like the stuntmen from Jackass.

But stunts are like dance routines, they are all planned. You sit there with your stunt coordinator, you go through the job, you assess the dangers, you understand the procedure, the timings and then after all that planning you perform the stunt. Most of the time the stunts are safe and rehearsed, they are not meant to put you in danger or to kill you.

Fight scene, sorry to ruin your bubble or to give you spoilers but they are choreographed, we have rehearsed that fight beforehand. Explosions, planned, there is a director sitting there shouting the actual word "explosions," and then boom. Underwater scenes, planned again, there is a scuba team with you holding an oxygen tank to supply you with air when you need it.

It's safe and organised; it just 'seems' more dangerous because we are doing extreme sports for a career. The same type of extreme like Formula 1 Racing Drivers and Firemen. It just seems dangerous and "dumb" as people have called my industry before, as it's out of what society calls the ordinary job line.

Stunts aren't formed to go wrong but as you can see it happens. Unfortunately, a woman recently passed away in Deadpool 2 via a motorbike stunt accident, a low-speed accident according to the newspapers. She was a professional motorbike racer. But just because she had done stunt work was it to be expected? As that's just the industry right...

Wrong!

Cars aren't designed to kill people yet people pass away or are injured in car accidents every day, that doesn’t stop you from getting in a vehicle. Builders don't purposely get hurt but sometimes the scaffolding can experience equipment failure or you just slip, tree surgeons don't plan to cut themselves but chainsaws are very dangerous equipment, horse riders fall off all the time but we all understand you can't always control the horse. I mean I saw a documentary of a man working in an office getting electrocuted because it was thundering and lightning outside...

No one intends to get injured in their job but everyone knows there are risks.

That stunt woman passing was a tragedy and an accident, it didn't deserve to happen and will not be excused because she's a stunt woman. RIP Joi 'SJ' Harris.

Accidents happen and there is nothing we can do change this. I jumped because I knew at one point in my career I was going to get asked to jump off a building and I wanted to be prepared. But I didn't expect all this to happen.