A 170m building in Osaka, Japan kinda stands out. I scoped it out on a Monday to sort out the security detail and decided I had a good chance to pull it off as there were only 4 security officers on the observation platform. Unfortunately there were 20 Security officers present on jump day Thursday. The weakness in the security was still there though. It meant that I would have less time to stand up and jump from the handrail 2m out and 1.5m down to the top of the suicide fence, followed by a 3m drop to the roof where I would run to the edge and jump.
I waited until the security guy walked behind me and turned his back, and went for it. As soon as I stood on the handrail, the security guard started yelling, but I made it onto the suicide fence and dropped down to the roof and made for the exit point. One security guy was on my heels yelling Japanese at me. I was thoroughly prepared for this. I had learned how to say in Japanese, A: If you come closer I will jump”. B: “I am very sorry”. C: ”Thank you very much”.
I threw off my day backpack camouflage covering my rig and turned to say “If you come closer I will jump”, but I forgot the words unfortunately. So instead I said “thank you very much” with a big smile on my face. I think the smile on my face freaked him out because he took a step back and I turned and jumped.
I had planned to land near the street but as I unstowed my brakes, I saw there was too many people there on the sidewalk. So I opted for a 180 degree turn back into the inside of the building (The building was 2, 150m office towers, 70m apart capped with another 20m of building bridging them together.).
As I was preparing to flare I saw two security guards running towards me. I flared, stood it up and grabbed two armfuls of canopy and they had me. They escorted me to a meeting room where I waited for about 15minutes until the board meeting convened. I made use of the Japanese that I did know, repeating it over while waving my hands like foreigners do , “I am very sorry”, ”Thank you very much”, and in English, “Beautiful building!”
They made me write on a piece of paper that I would not jump the building again and I asked how many times as I thought this was copy work like when you were bad in school like Bart Simpson. They didn’t understand so I wrote what they asked and they looked it over, discussed it and then handed it back and ask me to write that if I did jump it again it would on my own responsibility. So I did that and signed it with my BASE number.
Then they were escorting me to the door and I asked a question that was translated. The question I asked was “Could you bring me some postcards from the tourist shop?” There was a resounding “No!” in English and they threw me outside. Before I could regain my feet, my canopy was thrown on top of me, along with my day backpack camouflage get up and the door slammed and I could hear the lock slamming closed.
~Cynthia Lynn Chronicles~ 