Many choose to live life on the edge. Be it in work or leisure the thought of living an ordinary life is enough to drive people to seek out alternative thrills and entertainment – however, jumping off 1000-meters cliffs at 180-km/hour is perhaps closer to one’s nightmare than one’s ecstasy.Though for Norwegian, Karina Hollekim, this was exactly what got her out of bed in the morning as she spent six of the most extraordinary years as a professional BASE Jumper. She is one of the most remarkable, inspiring and determined people one could possibly meet. Her story is one of beating the odds and accomplishing goals which all-but she believed to be impossible: first with childish ignorance and fearlessness; and then in the face of near death and all-but-certain disability.
Growing up in Norway she was immediately exposed to skiing, though it was not sliding down mountains that excited her most. When asked about her dreams by her school teacher she recalls: “I said I wanted to fly and told her about the birds, how free they were and how untouched they were by everything else. I wanted to feel that same kind of freedom and to be able to play in the sky. She told me that it was a nice dream, and I had to be more realistic in life because people can’t fly. But little does she know, because I kept that dream”.
Hollekim was a sponsored skier, though never lost that childhood vision to fly as she took a skydiving course at 23-years old. She advanced to BASE Jumping quickly, by combining the contacts she had made on the pistes and became a year-round athlete.
The sport took her to “some really magnificent, really remote amazing places. You can go to a huge city like New York and be captivated by the buildings and structures and you can jump off construction projects to hotels or anything in Downtown New York – which is pretty fascinating; and challenging because of the winds. But for sure I’m a nature girl, and I love to hike in the mountains and to climb. I have been to Africa, in Mali. In the glaciers of Alaska there is nothing but white and cliffs all over you – amazing! Even travelling in my own country, it was only when I started BASE Jumping that I began to explore and see Norway, because you seek out all those hidden valleys which you wouldn’t go to if wasn’t for jumping.”
ing – which is how she obviously views her sport. Particularly in the wing-suit she was able to defy her teacher and truly be as one with the birds.In August 2006 everything changed. It was in the same outfit and accomplishing a dream for a further time – but this time led to disaster, and marked the beginning of another seemingly impossible journey for Hollekim. As she astonishingly recalls: “It was a World Cup in paragliding and I was invited there to do a show, and fly in my wing-suit. It was actually out of a plane, so it was like another day in the office. I wasn’t scared about it, or worried because it was an easy thing.
“I remember sitting in the plane and looking down at Switzerland and it was beautiful. I thought that I was a lucky girl, this was my work, this was my profession – how could it get any better than this? I was with good friends, I was laughing, and I was having a good time. I jumped out of the plane, and I was with my friend Geraldine. Just as I was about to open my parachute I heard the roars and clapping from the thousands of spectators that were below us – it was perfect.
“I pulled the parachute and realised immediately that something was wrong. Then 15-seconds later my life had changed forever. What I had was something called a tension knot, it isn’t an actual knot but a build up of tension, and as long as I am hanging below it can’t be undone. I spun into the ground at 100-km/hour. I fractured everything I have from below my waist down. I had 21 fractures on my right side, and they were all open fractures so I had more of my leg outside than I had in.”
Somehow her back and head were unscathed and she survived – though she had to deal with a situation she had never even considered. “Before I was very black and white about it, I knew that if I had an accident I would either survive and be fine, or be dead. But suddenly I was stuck in a wheelchair for an indefinite amount of time, and I was the one who had to deal with the consequences. It was much harder and much tougher than I had ever anticipated.”
She spent four months in hospital where she withered, losing muscle mass and almost a third of her body-weight and without the strength to sit up for an full meal. Told that she would never walk again, she not only had to rebuild physically, but also had to overcome the mental hammer-blow that she would be dependable on a metal chair for the rest of her life.
But little did they know, because she kept her dream.
A year later, after intensive gym, pool and physio work, the truly sensational woman was not only walking but wall climbing; and hopes to be skiing again this winter. She claims to understand the concepts of fear and defeat, though the evidence suggests otherwise.
Telling her story in a series of talks Hollekim is trying to spread the message that “people have to ‘dare to dream’ – because even if your dream is completely unrealistic and seems a little far off, I still believe that you can do it and you just need to believe in yourself.”
She learnt to fly, survived and recovered from a near-fatal and an almost certain crippling injury – something anybody can learn and take lessons from. Her film – 20 Seconds of Joy – logs her journey from ski-baby to BASE Jumper, including her injury and early stages of recovery. The personal spine of the 60-minute movie gives it an extra dimension to most extreme-sports documentaries, and left many at the premier in the Soho Hotel speechless and quite clearly moved.
