Waiting for Lightning Page #8

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To the average person

it seems far-fetched,

but he knows

what he's doing.

He's been skating probably

just as long as I've been alive.

Of course

there's human limits,

but he understands

what he is

or isn't capable of.

It's a different breed

of human being.

It's Laird Hamilton,

it's Travis Pastrana,

it's Danny Way.

Everybody has

a self-preservation mechanism

in their mind

blocking you

from being fearless.

They don't have it.

I feel I've always been

very good at risk analysis.

Everyone says

you gotta be fearless

to do what we do,

but it's not true.

I think anyone fearless

gets hurt too quick

to ever be great

at anything.

they might get

a shade nervous,

but never once do they

ever cross their mind

What might

happen to them.

The only thing

they think about

is how they're

gonna make it.

Once you lose the fear of death,

you really learn how to live.

A lot of people

are just so paranoid

to get injured

or for failure

that they never let themselves

step up and live life.

Well, I think we should have

an extension up there.

I need...

I want the speed.

We could get

four feet taller on it.

Four foot taller. That thing

looks so gnarly already.

I'd rather have

that up there the first go

so I overshoot it

than undershoot it.

If I land on that deck

it's gonna be...

I'd rather land halfway down

than land on the deck.

Better to have too much speed

than not enough,

so at the last minute

we decided to go a little higher

and built a little

four-foot extension

so Danny can pump

off this thing

to get

a lot more speed.

At some point

you have to realize

how much do you

really love skating?

Are you willing to risk not

having it in your life anymore

because you want to do

that one last thing?

The day before

the official event,

Danny says,

"I wanna try a jump".

I didn't know if he

was supposed to practice

or not supposed

to practice.

We were pretty much

just keeping on eye on him

and seeing

what he was doing.

He wasn't supposed

to skate it,

so we were sitting

there all day,

and he's kind

of tinkering with the ramp

and finally

the Chinese officials

that were there to, like,

look at everything,

and these dudes

are pretty serious,

so we waited

until they bounced,

and he was like,

"All right, I'm going for it".

I just ran across

this bridge to shoot it.

I just hear someone saying,

"Hey, Danny's gonna take a run".

There was no siding,

no safety nets, nothing.

I'm like, "Oh, my god,

this can't be good".

Danny will admit

that he's scared.

He'll admit

that he's scared

standing on top

of the roll-in

at the megaramp

that he's scared of heights.

It's got

my heart moving.

Whatever he does

to channel that fear out

is something

that I don't think

most living people

ever learn to do.

You are rolling

down this massive structure

into the complete unknown.

It's hard to imagine

a lot of other things

that could be

any more terrifying.

When you finally do push off

and you start going down,

there's no going back.

Oh! Oh!

Hey!

Danny!

It was terrible.

Terrible.

I didn't know

if he had a broken neck

or if he was dead

or, you know,

he'd broken his leg

or what.

All you can do

is just sit there

and watch it and hope

that he's okay.

I'm speechless.

Speechless, man.

That was like

a car accident.

No skateboarder has

ever slammed like that.

God damn.

Dude.

I was like, "If this thing

is cancelled right now,

that's fine by me.

Danny's okay".

You need ice

on it immediately.

Ice right now, please,

and then we need this wrapped.

We need

more roll-in, man. F***!

His foot

was destroyed.

All I'm gonna do now is wrap

it so it doesn't swell, okay?

I'm over this stuff.

I just lost about

a year of my life

from standing

up there already.

We rush him to the hospital

and he's like,

"Ray, like, I just

don't wanna know.

I don't wanna know

if it's broken or not".

They are pissed.

We got a call basically

in the middle of the night

from the major sponsor

to say that

Danny isn't jumping

without major changes.

He came up short,

and we need to fix it.

We're gonna shorten

the gap by ten feet,

so that's what

our mission is now.

There's

a selfish aspect to putting

these really difficult goals

upon yourself

and putting yourself

at risk because

there are people

around you that love you

and they want

to see you survive.

They want to see

you grow old,

but you have

such tunnel vision

you don't hear

any of those voices

because you have convinced

yourself you're capable of it.

I think Danny wants

his boy to see him

be all the man he is,

and that means do what he does.

Not like, "Oh, now

that I have my son,

I'm not gonna ride

the giant ramp".

I don't think so.

I remember him

calling the room

the morning of the jump

and being like,

"Yeah," like,

kind of laughing.

On the phone, he was like, "I guess

it's a lot of pressure, huh?"

I was like,

"Yeah, do you think?"

'Cause he couldn't

move the foot.

It was his back foot,

and that's how you steer

your skateboard.

If he doesn't steer

his skateboard right,

he's going off the side

and he's not gonna make it.

The next day came,

and all of a sudden

it's not practice anymore.

It's this huge thing.

There's people

running everywhere.

There's crowds.

There's camera crews.

Hopefully this works.

He's gonna try it.

There's nothing

that's gonna stop him.

Danny has to get his mind

set before he does jump.

He's gotta be alone.

When he went in

to do his meditating thing,

I went in

to wish him luck,

and I said, "Hey, Danny,

Tim wants to do

the jump with you".

And he goes,

"What do you mean?"

And I go, "Put this

in your pocket

so your dad's with you

when you do the jump".

I would've never

have started skateboarding.

He never

in a million years

thought I would ever think

to bring some

of his dad's ashes to him

so Tim could be there

with him

and make him land.

He needed skating

to kind of get through

his hardships in life,

and once you get through

something like that

and it's like,

okay, now you're indebted.

He knows that skating

made him who he is.

Now he's giving everything

he can to skating.

We all went down

some dark roads,

but it made us stronger,

a lot stronger people.

There is a lot

of anticipation.

You can just hear it

in the crowd,

and I remember

there being a lot of waiting

because it was

a live television thing.

Twenty-five million people

are gonna see this.

Danny Way is

in a very tricky position.

He could encourage

a tremendous number of athletes

to try things

that are dangerous,

but he's also gotta honor

the pioneer in him

that wants to share

what is possible.

I cannot even imagine

what was going through his mind,

but he had put himself in a

situation where he had to do it.

He knew that,

and that's how he does it.

If you want

to live a life

where you're

breaking ground,

that's an uncomfortable

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