Near Death Experience Just One More Hurdle for Daredevil Entrepreneur

Virtually every entrepreneur has faced challenges throughout their career and life, but not many have had to bounce back after having a 150 lbs. human bullet break their backs while hurtling through the sky at 170 miles per hour.

Not only did self-proclaimed go-getter and perfectionist Patricia Baronowski-Schneider, who owns Pristine Advisers in Long Island, New York, have to overcome gruesome injuries to get back to running her business, she had to endure much more even before that.

“... while my kids played with their toys in our conference room.”

Baronowski-Schneider got a job as a secretary with a large, global public relations firm fresh out of high school. From these early beginnings, she slowly worked her way up the corporate ladder while raising two small children by herself. On top of that, she attended Empire State College via distance education to earn a Masters’ Degree in Business Management and Marketing.

Climbing the corporate ladder meant doing a lot of what Baronowski-Schneider described as “grunt work,” like doing end-of-the-day reports for clients. While the job took up all of her time, the good pay and medical benefits kept her there. 

“Many days I would have to leave work to go and retrieve my children from daycare by 6:00 pm only to return back to the office to finish work that was left for me,” she recalled during a recent interview. “I spent many a night and weekend at the office while my kids played with their toys in our conference room.”

Over the next 20 years, the various firms Baronowski-Schneider worked for would be sold and restructured numerous times, but the one constant for her was that all the clients she worked for followed her throughout all the changes. 

After years of navigating through numerous corporate mergers and acquisitions, Baronowski-Schneider consulted with a trusted friend who suggested that since she had essentially been working on her own for the past 16 years, why not make it official and just start her own business?

“That was all I needed to hear,” she said. “I thought long and hard about it and decided – yes – why not? I ran the idea past all of my clients and again – they all chose to follow me. It truly was heart-warming to see the appreciation that they had for me.”

Early Hurdles

While starting Pristine Advisers was definitely the right direction for Baronowski-Schneider, she had hurdles to overcome on her way to business success. This included having a competitor swoop in and coax away four of her clients at once when she was just getting her business started, dealing a hefty blow to the business’ finances.

Another time, a different company tried to sue Pristine Advisers for the spurious accusation of “stealing ideas.” Even though the lawsuit was rightfully dismissed, it still ate up valuable resources and time.

And then there have been the clients for whom Pristine Advisers created in-depth marketing plans for free in an effort to get their business only to have the potential clients take those plans and implement them in-house. Those were painful lessons in never giving away work without compensation.

After a rough start, Pristine Advisers found its footing, but its biggest challenge lay ahead. 

Her secret life

Like some modern day superhero, Baronowski-Schneider was living a double life.

At her nine-to-five day job, she was the studious worker, going the proverbial extra mile for her clients.

But, on the weekends, she enjoyed jumping out of planes.

That passion stemmed from trying a tandem skydive to get over her fear of heights. Once she tried it, Baronowski-Schneider recalled, she had to do it again and again. Her perfectionism drove her to go beyond just jumping out as a passive participant. She wanted to do it on her own and then be the one to teach others how to do it.

For 15 years, the PR, IR and marketing specialist worked part-time as a skydiving instructor on the weekends where she taught others the fine art of plummeting through the sky and did hundreds of jumps just for fun.

One of those fun jumps nearly ended her life.

“He broke my back ...”

On September 5, 2015, Baronowski-Schneider jumped from a plane with two other people. One of them was approximately as experienced as her, but the third person was not.

When they reached their designated altitude, they started to fall away from each other in preparation of deploying their parachutes. She and the more experienced of her jumping group that day both flattened themselves out so they were falling as if they were laying on their stomachs to create drag and slow themselves down.

However, the less experienced member, who was above them, accidentally moved in the same direction as Baronowski-Schneider, who ended up directly below him. While she had flattened herself out to slow down, he continued to fall in a standing position, causing him to descend much quicker. His knee -- while plummeting 170 mph through the sky -- struck Baronowski-Schneider in the head.

“He broke my back and his knee hit my helmet,” she described. “So, he broke his knee, knocked the helmet off of my head, and I was apparently knocked unconscious.”

The only thing that saved her life was her automatic activation device (AAD), which automatically deploys a parachute at a pre-set altitude if it hasn’t been deployed already. 

While these devices are not mandatory for skydivers, Baronowski-Schneider opted to use one for her jumps and the one she had that day was a replacement that she only received a week prior to the jump because her previous one had been malfunctioning.

Unconscious and unable to control her descent, she drifted 5,000 feet through the air and landed in a tree where she woke up, barely clinging to life with a broken back, a broken neck, a fractured larynx and traumatic brain injury.

Slowly, Baronowski-Schneider’s broken body mended itself with the help of doctors, breathing tubes, steel implants and braces. After a month in hospital that she has no recollection of, doctors sent her home.

The recovery wasn’t easy.

Her bones repaired themselves, but it was her injured brain that gave her the most trouble. Being the mysterious organ it is, doctors told her they had no way of knowing how long it would take to recover or if it would recover 100%.

In her compromised state of mind, Baronowski-Schneider started to uncharacteristically fall for some of the many phone and email scams being perpetrated on unsuspecting people, leaving her demoralized and emotionally exhausted.

“This went on for over a year – and I was at the lowest point of my life,” she said. “But again, did I throw my hands in the air and quit? Nope. Here I sit today, still pushing forward. I am back to normal now – and stronger than ever.”

Baronowski-Schneider’s family begged her to stop skydiving and she has complied with those wishes, although she is quick to point out that she still considers it to be a safe sport.

Back on track

Fully recovered from the accident, Baronowski-Schneider can now appreciate how her work ethic with Pristine Advisers influenced her skydiving career (and saved her life) and vice versa.

For example, Baronowski-Schneider has always made a point of going well beyond client expectations, which is why they’ve been so willing to follow her when she started her own company. It was this type of thinking that prompted her to use an AAD while jumping, to make sure she was doing everything possible to remain safe.

She has always been a proponent of making sure her staff is trained well enough to perform every role in the company so there are no gaps in service when others are absent. This served Pristine Advisers well during her long recovery period. Even without her there, the firm ran smoothly, giving her the time she needed to recuperate.

Since the accident, Baronowski-Schneider, who is now a grandmother, has learned to slow her life down a little bit. While she does miss jumping out of planes, that is offset by spending time with her grandchildren.

The most important takeaway Baronowski-Schneider got from the accident is that bad things don’t last forever. Even when you’re at your lowest, you can heal and come back from anything even stronger than you were before. Now back on top and with a new appreciation and outlook on life, Baronowski-Schneider and Pristine Advisers seem to have nothing but blue skies ahead.