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Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

bmj.com

31–40 of 127 posts

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#31
post #8

Would you indicate this is a satirical article? Half the time I was looking for jump height or understanding if adding parachutes to commercial aircraft that suddenly experienced breakage such as a missile would improve passenger survival.

I've done over 900 jumps so I can fill you in, no references ATM because I'm on my phone. If you jump with a parachute, you will see chance of death go from 0% at zero feet, to approximately 100% at 35 feet. From there, it will remain near 100% until you reach about 600 feet, which is about the minimum distance it takes a parachute to open. Above 1000 feet and chance of death floors out near 0%

I distinctly remember seeing a video of a jump my unit did in Honduras (right before I got there) where someone on the ground with a camera followed someone burning-in who opened their reserve at ~50-75ft and "walked" away with just a broken tailbone.

There was another case where someone "successfully" burned-in from 800ft (where we did all our jumps from) and survived because they did a proper landing or, perhaps, just pure luck.

From what I remember there were only a couple jump-related fatalities in the 3 years I was on jump status and the 82nd did something like a million jumps a year...which says a lot because if we went 82 days without a fatality we would get a day off and in 3 years we reached that goal exactly once.

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#32
post #20
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also essential to read the first cited article ( https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459?ijkey=3b8c1a70a8d2... ) which very much inspired this paper and is also quite a bit funnier.

It's like when someone says something funny, then another person follows up with a witticism that basically repeats the same joke... Like someone makes an inspired pun and some dude immediately exclaims "LITERALLY!"

They did an actual trial here though

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#33
post #5

Please fix the title. It's misleading. The linked article in no way claims that "Parachutes prevent death when jumping from aircraft".

Given that it says "randomised trial", it's implied that there would be a control group — a group of people who are sent to die for the sake of an experiment. Given that nobody would ever do this, it's quite obvious that there's some tongue-in-cheek angle to the story. It isn't misleading if you can read between the lines.

The finding was that parachutes have no effect on deaths. Title is the exact opposite of the finding.

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#34
post #11

This title has been editorialized from "Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial" to "Parachutes prevent death when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial"

It would suck to be in the control group. ;)

Also, as my grandfather was a paratrooper: parachuting isn't a risk free activity even when the main canopy deploys properly, i.e., broken limbs on landing. And it's remotely possible to survive a fall without a parachute from terminal velocity height, i.e., Vesna Vulović. Edit: <- Edge-cases contrary to the obvious.

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#35

A coworker of mine once made this proposal. 5 of us would start a company. The company would buy key man insurance for everyone, then go on a company team building trip. On this trip, we'd all skydive, but one of the 5 parachutes would be non-functional...Profit! This coworker of mine soon after left the company by storming out of the meeting room and slamming the door, then took up playing online poker for a living.

[deleted]

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#36
post #5

Please fix the title. It's misleading. The linked article in no way claims that "Parachutes prevent death when jumping from aircraft".

Given that it says "randomised trial", it's implied that there would be a control group — a group of people who are sent to die for the sake of an experiment. Given that nobody would ever do this, it's quite obvious that there's some tongue-in-cheek angle to the story. It isn't misleading if you can read between the lines.

To the contrary, I think it might be you who is jumping to unfounded conclusions. Contrast the current title "Parachutes prevent death when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial" with the first line of from the Conclusion of the paper: "Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervention".

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#37
post #11

This title has been editorialized from "Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial" to "Parachutes prevent death when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial"

It would suck to be in the control group. ;) Also, as my grandfather was a paratrooper: parachuting isn't a risk free activity even when the main canopy deploys properly, i.e., broken limbs on landing. And it's remotely possible to survive a fall without a parachute from terminal velocity height, i.e., Vesna Vulović. Edit: <- Edge-cases contrary to the obvious.

The control group in this study only fell a couple of feet at most. I don't think it sucked much for them at all.

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#38

Would you indicate this is a satirical article? Half the time I was looking for jump height or understanding if adding parachutes to commercial aircraft that suddenly experienced breakage such as a missile would improve passenger survival.

The fact that this isn't immediately tagged as satirical and requires actually reading the article and fully understanding the context (rather than just reading the headline and making a quick assumption) is pretty much the entire point of the "study" and the authors of it. Marking it as satirical would sabotage the purpose.

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would suck to be in the control group. ;) Also, as my grandfather was a paratrooper: parachuting isn't a risk free activity even when the main canopy deploys properly, i.e., broken limbs on landing. And it's remotely possible to survive a fall without a parachute from terminal velocity height, i.e., Vesna Vulović. Edit: <- Edge-cases contrary to the obvious.

The control group in this study only fell a couple of feet at most. I don't think it sucked much for them at all.

Smh. Poe's law disclaimer wink added.

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#40

A coworker of mine once made this proposal. 5 of us would start a company. The company would buy key man insurance for everyone, then go on a company team building trip. On this trip, we'd all skydive, but one of the 5 parachutes would be non-functional...Profit! This coworker of mine soon after left the company by storming out of the meeting room and slamming the door, then took up playing online poker for a living.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine
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