Skydiving with a stoma

What to expect from a skydive with a stoma

This piece does not cover my terror of flying and heights – there is another blog piece here (https://www.stomachameleon.com/post/free-falling-into-terror ) which gives the story about my skydive…entitled “Freefalling into terror”…make of that what you will…

Instead I want to briefly explain what to expect if you would like to sky dive with a stoma.

Medical form

Firstly, you have to fill in a medical form, which is no different from all other participants, ticking the relevant boxes as you go through the form. At the end there is a section for your colo-rectal (or whichever specialist you are currently under) consultant to sign. How do you get them to sign? I called my consultant’s secretary and explained what I needed him to do, she gave me her email address and I sent across my form. It is vital that they also stamp the form with their medical stamp. If you have any concerns about the medical aspect of sky diving with a stoma, now is the time to make an appointment with your specialist – or send them an email with your queries.

The fact that your consultant is prepared to sign your form is of course an indication that your stoma will be fine during the sky dive, otherwise they wouldn’t sign it!

Remember to take your medical form with you on the day of the sky dive, as no form = no sky dive!

The Harness

One of my worries, apart from obviously falling out of a plane at 15,000ft, was that the harness would damage my stoma, pull at my bag, or be too uncomfortable to bear. I contacted the sky dive academy before I booked my sky dive, to have a chat about my concerns. It turns out that they had never done sky diving with a client who had a stoma so mine would be the first they had dealt with. We agreed that the best idea would be for me to