Okay, let’s talk about tandem skydiving for a second. Has anyone ever done it? It’s awkward, to say the least. You literally crawl on your hands and knees into a tiny airplane, strap yourself to a complete stranger, and then, once you have slowly and creepily ascended to 4,000 feet in the air, the two of you climb out of the plane together and jump into space. Most of the experience is completely terrifying. Intel Chris recently went skydiving on Long Island (with Intel alum Jessica Coen!), helping with research for Noelle Hancock’s upcoming book about overcoming fears, My Year With Eleanor (out June 2011!). He literally screamed for so loud and so long that it was unclear when his shrieks ended and when the roaring of air in his tandem instructor’s ears began.
The one constant in tandem skydiving, the one steady sensation of human safety you get, is the feeling of having another person physically attached to your spine. There’s a reason why people in action movies say, “I got your back!” (Which leaps much more easily to the tongue than “You STAY ALIVE. No matter what occurs. I WILL FIND YOU!”) Humans have an instinctive fear of what might be happening behind them, where they can’t see or protect themselves. If there is a person right there making sure you are safe, how much can go wrong?
Well, lots of things, obviously. But usually the person who has your back while you are skydiving is doing everything right and making sure you are safe. According to “Rosanna,” though, this was not the case on June 18 when she jumped out of a plane strapped to Donald Zarda, a 40-year-old instructor at Skydive Long Island. Rosanna says that in the frantic moments of free fall, when the pair were somersaulting into the air, Zarda touched her breast. And she got him fired over it.
Is that likely? Probably. If you’ve ever jumped out of a speeding plane, you’ll know that a lot of weird stuff can happen rather quickly. But is it sexual? Not usually. In fact, in this case, it’s a pretty sure bet it wasn’t. “I’m 100 percent gay,” Zarda told the Post this week. “The situation is so bizarre.”
We did a little Daily Intel investigation into Zarda’s Facebook page to check this claim. His profile pic features him wearing sunglasses, a choker necklace, and a wingsuit — open to the waist, exposing his entire chest. Which is waxed. Sorry, “Rosanna,” but we rest our case.
