Glad to hear that everybody is okay in this one.
BTW, when I was in the Marines, I flew hundreds of hours in a C-130. I took one helicopter ride and I was almost peeing my pants. Especially when it got a few hundred feet in the air and just hovered there with the side doors wide open. There's just something very unnatural about just hanging in the air like that. When I got off that helicopter, I said "never again" and I've never climbed onto one since.
Funny you say this..I was telling my husband today I would be in big trouble if I had to be rescued by one of these, I'm so afraid of hights that I don't think I could make myself go up with that teeny tiny cable that looks thinner than a pencil!
We mechs used go as crew up in them after they came out of check to shoot auto-rotations, just for fun.
( the pilots kinda liked it too, as they figured if we
were willing to go after working on them, they were
probably ok.)
Go to altitude, free the rotor drop like a stone
and wind the rotor up then engage the pitch at the bottom
to slow you down, kind of an emergency manouver.
Quite exciting when you're 19.
We used to sing this song as we dropped.
"We are sinking DEEEP in SIN!!!!
"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"
I saw that even if a helicopter loses all power, several hundred feet in the air, it can land somewhat safely. The rotor acts to slow the descent.