Jacqueline Detwiler-George

On the way to Skydive the Ranch in Ulster County, New York, a pastoral expanse encompassing a shallow pond, a runway, and an aircraft hangar that houses a couple of 22-passenger Twin Otter airplanes, Red Bull–sponsored professional skydiver Jeff Provenzano (nickname Jeffro) tried to reassure me by saying that he was also petrified on his first tandem dive. “We’re more likely to get hurt on the drive to the drop zone than we are during the jump,” he said. Then he immediately made an ill-advised U…