Wanna hear an interesting reaction to paratroops?
32 jumpers on a warm Sunday afternoon coming down in Alexandria, VA, many miles from their drop zone each with a PAE bag (Personal Arms and Equipment) filled with an artillery box, I think, with sand bags in it weighing 110lbs. attached to a rope that I think was 18’ long (after it’s released from the harness in front of you under the reserve chute) looking for a safe place to land. We were ALL stunned!
By the time I realize what’s going on ( we’re not all as sharp as we think we are) I’m coming down in the backyard of a house surrounded by a chain link fence with a cookout party going on with I don’t know how many people there, tables and chairs all over the place, and they’re just staring up at me with their jaws dropped.
“Get those tables and chairs out of the way!”
They’re still just staring at me, dumbfounded! (I can laugh at it now.)
Well, I’m not riding this bag in! I pull the quick release on the rope attached to my harness, start yelling for them to get out of the way, that I’m dropping my bag, I pull the safety pin out of the bag release, punch the release, and the 110lb. bag drops away from about 100-150 ft. It hits the edge of a redwood table full of food, shattering it, throwing food and dishes all over the place, as well as the table! NOW, they ALL move in a panic hurrying to escape from any further bombardment, but leaving the rest of the tables and chairs in place! I land. I don’t hit anything. I’m not hurt. I am grateful, and still stunned.
A few guys and civilians got hurt. One guy broke his hip, and damn near drowned, landed one foot on the edge of an in ground pool and the other in the water.
One guy somehow rode his bag in and landed in the back of a
convertible with its top down that was stopped at a red light, severely injuring the two teens he landed on. The driver apparently had the presence of mind to NOT move the vehicle. Lots of guys landed on hard suburban streets. Out of 32 guys we had about 8 or 10 injured, legs, arms, shoulders, and most of the rest bruised up pretty good. I got off lucky, was just terrified a bit.
We were miles off the drop zone! I don’t know of anyone who ever found out how come.
Ah, the good old days.
Nice enough storytelling to put the reader into a panic! WOW!
In 1983, I wrecked my car and was in the hospital at Ft Bragg for 4 days, with a compression fracture of lower lumbar #3.
An airborne infantry battalion made a unit jump and over 50 paratroopers that wound up injured on the jump were admitted to the hospital with me in a hospital bed nearby, surrounded by their good graces.
I will never forget a Colonel that was going bedside to bedside to check on the injured paratroopers, and even visited me. He found out in short order that I was not in the hospital due to an airborne jump injury, but from a car wreck, and left my bedside as fast as he found it when he learned that I was in the hospital with a self-inflicted wound.
No sympathy for incompetence however, and I couldn’t have agreed more with his reaction to my situation.
At nearly the same time frame, a personal friend wound up in the hospital (Womack) with two broken wrists that he had received during a sport parachute jump at a weekend MWR jump club on base.
When I found out that he was in the hospital with me, I left my bed to go see him down the hall. Unbeknownst, an Army doctor came by to see me when I was out of bed and deduced that I was ready for discharge upon seeing my newfound walking capabilities.