She barely survived a 20-foot fall last year: Now she’s returning to Burning Man

It is often said that facing your fears is the most effective way to overcome them. One San Francisco native has taken that advice to the extreme by returning to the scene of her worst nightmare.

Rachael Gingery was one of dozens of people who left last year’s Burning Man festival in ambulances or medevac helicopters after a 20-foot fall. Gingery broke her back and ribs, bruised her spleen, and punctured a lung after slipping off a pole that was part of a wooden ship art exhibit in the middle of the Black Rock Desert.

Return to scene of “scariest moment”

Speaking after the event, Gingery described the incident as the “scariest moment of my life,” but that hasn’t stopped her from returning this year. “I appreciate that Burning Man is a little bit dangerous,” she told SFGate. “But it’s kind of what makes it exciting.”

Gingery uploaded a number of Instagram stories from her ninth visit to this year’s Burning Man festival, which has been battered by sandstorms and rain, with attendees also reporting huge traffic delays.

Founded in 1986, Burning Man bills itself as “a global cultural movement advancing a more creative, connected and thriving society.” The annual week-long event, held in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, is guided by 10 principles: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.

Burning Man: Art, community, and danger

Artwork created by participants, including the wooden ship exhibit Gingery fell from, is one of the event’s key features. Attendees are also responsible for arranging the activities that take place throughout the week.

Although held in the name of community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance, Burning Man is known for its risks, with many attendees suffering from dehydration and desert exposure.

Drugs and alcohol use are also common, which often plays a part in festival-goers sustaining injuries of varying degrees.

The festival requires attendees to agree to an extensive waiver, which includes accepting the risk of injury or even death as a condition of participation. Two people have previously died as a result of falls from the wooden ship exhibit, but Gingery thankfully lived to tell the tale… and went back.

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