Video shows that the paratrooper of the army was saved from potentially deadly injuries

In the video, several paratroopers leave the C-17 door without any problems before a soldier stumbles shortly before jumping. A Jumpmaster-qualified soldier, who acted as “security” for the jump, immediately pulled back and set his static line. The video signature states that the “Springer had wrapped the static line around his neck” and that the security “prevented a serious injury”, which the soldier confirmed for the jump to the task and the purpose.

A static line is a long yellow fabric cable that is attached to a paratrooper when jumping. The string pulls the parachute of the jumper while the jumper leaves the plane.

Task & Purpose spoke to two former army jump masters to maintain their view of what went wrong during the jump and what the soldier prevented the “security”.

“If this static line around the man's arm or his neck has been misled, it doesn't matter,” said Sgt. Maj. Jeff Mellinger said. “He did what to do and this jumper lived on it to tell about it.”

Jumpmasters are experienced paratroopers who have completed a comprehensive training to prepare and implement a jump, including a long list of security considerations at every step. Jumpmasters are trained for Jumpmaster personnel inspections (JMPI) with all soldiers' equipment and the plane. They also help to plan the jump and ensure that all steps are followed when the soldiers adjust to the drop zone.

When the army collapse jumps in exercises such as that on the video, there are several qualified jumpers on board the aircraft and lead every movement. The jump master in the video acted as “security”, the jump master, who approached the door and checked each paratrooper and checked in the last second after problems.

“We are very annoying for other people because we take this idea of ​​personal accountability and these things at work they should take very seriously,” said retired colonel Col. Francesca Graham, a former intelligence officer and senior jumpmaster. “In the truest sense of the word, it is the only time that you are an individual if you are 20 feet from the floor in the entire process.”

In the worst case, the static line could accidentally wrap around the neck of a soldier, a misfortune in which a paratrooper was killed in 2016. When it is wrapped around the arm, he could break or condemn bones and joints in their arms and shoulders while the soldier whips down the cable.

The Security Jump Master “controls this static line to prevent it from leafing around and the equipment from catching or walking around the arm or head of the sweater,” said Mellinger. “Your task at this point is to control this static line, control the movement and to control the separation between jumpers, regardless of this interval.

The security position, said Mellinger, must be calm in a chaotic place.

“You have to make sure that nothing is going down or dragging,” he said. “I mean, there is a lot going on. You have enormous responsibility. “

The nearby local transport on the video, said Graham, is also a memory of personal and community responsibility, the diving masters and soldiers in the air-learning a wrong step in their area can influence an wrong step.

“When I was one of the people, one of the people, he did not really bring his static line to safety, and security could not take them in time and the guy had shot his whole arm from biceps,” said Graham.

Any number of factors can transform a training jump into a dangerous situation: the static line wrongly follows collisions with medium air or jumper from the aircraft and steal air “-The term for the time when a parachute can be overlooked via another and the higher parachute can be emptied without clear air flow.

“You could see that the jumper somehow lost the balance and no longer stood upright, but still went to the door, which meant that under no circumstances did the static line were correctly handed over to security,” she said. “You would have a static line around and who knows what the hell will happen with it.”

Several bad things can happen if a jumper leaves the plane incorrectly. The static line, which is enthusiastic about the anchor cable on the ceiling of the aircraft, can turn around the body of the sweater like a “cigarette role”, said Graham and prevents her main farms open and even stood by the soldiers by means of the soldier to pull their reserve chute.

Another danger is the static line, which is located around the soldier's backpack and is attached to its legs. In this case, the cable can hold back the soldiers from the fall.

“They only fly and jump off the plane,” said Mellinger as a “hung” or “dragged jumper”. A towed jumper died when they were pulled behind an aircraft in an accident in 2014.

“You can imagine how it feels,” said Graham. “You will be related. They could be switched off. There are only so many bad things. “

Under this worst case, all options are bad. Jumpmasters have to decide whether to cut their static line so that the jumper is free, hoping that they can use their reserve parachute. The other option – and the only one for an unconscious jumper – is to pull it back on the plane.

For this reason, the army announced a few years ago that it bought an emergency parachute developed in Great Britain, “as soon as the diving master cuts the cable of the aircraft anchored cable,” she bought.

Due to all the risks associated with the jump of aircraft of 200 miles per hour in connection with dozens of pounds of combat equipment, the air -colored compores in the air receive more than $ 150 in their salary checks.

“That's why they call it dangerous duty,” said Mellinger. “There is a lot of inherent risk, and you reduce the risk by carrying out training, following proper procedures by checking each other, etc., but happens even with all of the bad stuff.”

In dangerous situations, paratroopers can hit the ground hard and floodings, fractures or head trauma suffer. However, the most common injuries are broken or waved ankles.

Graham said she once broke her to the toe when you jump into Sicily and had to trudge a mile for the assembly point in the sand. A combination of adrenaline and concentration on literally everything else kept her from looking at the injury until the next day.

“As soon as you have hit the floor, you are as if she was turning your head to the left, turning her head to the right, moving her feet, moving her fingers, your legs, and you are just so damn grateful that you are not paralyzed and are not dead and nothing is catastrophic,” she said. “This is every single person, no matter how hard they sound.”

When she checked her, she said: “It was only this massive black terror.”

Occasionally, a jump can go perfectly, but paratroopers can miss the drop zone, which means that he is in a tree like the former Defense Minister Lloyd Austin, who already did and told Task & Purpose in October.

“I came into contact with trees of all sizes,” said Austin. “We always like to tear the planes. Because the planes always tell us: “Hey, we distributed them through the survey -drop zone.” If you look at the survey, she has grew up in 1950 and since then for the open areas. And you are right. It was a survey drop zone, but we have to agree. “

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