In 3 years jumping I've seen some pretty gruesome stuff. Don't believe the stats, you're exposing your body to lots of kinetic energy and we're pretty fragile. No nightmares or PTSD, but, let's just say I've seen the helicopter land more than I'd like.
The injury rate for first time jumpers doing tandems is near zero. Its all people hurting themselves, similar to someone buying a fast car and getting in a car accident while pushing 120mph. It happens and you think "Well... At least we all warned him to take it easy a bunch before his accident."
>The big question is always, "How dangerous is skydiving?" Each year, about 30 people die in parachuting accidents in the United States, or roughly one person per 100,000 jumps. Look at the US Skydiving Incident Reports to get an idea of the types of problems that lead to fatalities. If you make one jump in a year, your chance of dying is 1 in 100,000.