Navy parachutists in the trees

| June 16, 2010

They should really stick to the “Sea” portion of their name. Five Navy parachutists required extensive help to extricate themselves from the trees on Fort Story, a postage stamp-sized post near Virginia Beach according to the Virginia-Pilot;

It took about two hours to get them all down.

The city was called to help military rescue workers about 9:30 a.m., said Bruce Nedelka, the city’s emergency medical services division chief.

One of the five service members fell to the ground when a tree limb broke, Nedelka said, and was taken to a Norfolk hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Three ambulances, two fire engines, two ladder trucks, two specialty rescue trucks and two battalion chiefs were dispatched to the scene, Nedelka said.

It’d be a lot funnier if someone hadn’t got hurt (and I hope he has a speedy recovery).

I’ve landed in the trees a few times and I was always able to free myself without all of the first-responder drama. One particularly comfortable landing at Husky DZ in Alaska left me with my parachute in one tree and my WICI bag (CIWI bag?) in another – like a big hammock. Best landing ever. I deployed the reserve parachute and climbed down the OUTSIDE. It was a little harder getting the platoon’s radios and M60 tripod and ammo out of the WICI bag, though – but that’s why they paid me that extra $55/month..

Category: Military issues

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B Woodman

The song “It’s Raining Men” comes to mind. . . . (chucklesnort)

Old Tanker

The song “It’s Raining Men” comes to mind

insert rimshot here…

Woodman, you mean post DADT right?

“Look guythz, there growing on treethz now…”

JonP

I came in the trees one day and hung upside down about 10 feet off the ground. The DZ guys came running over and asked me if I was ok. When I said yeah they left. Kinda an iffy prop getting down but i did it without broken bones.

Jerry920

Ft. Story is a beautiful little post. Did a LOGEX down there once.