How I Fell Out Of A Helicopter or....Exiting A Chopper the Really Fast Way
There is no doubt that I was the first kid on my block to fall out of a helicopter in flight. Here's how it happened:
So we're in this CH-46 Sea Knight in Az. A bunch or Marines. We're hovering about 15 - 20 feet off the desert floor when I, in my my infinite wisdom, decide to stand up. Now, you gotta picture this: I'm dressed in full combat gear, rifle in hand, looking for all the world like John Wayne. Why I decided that the end of the ramp would be a good place to stand during flight is beyond me. I guess this was still in my "achieving wisdom" segment of life. Anyway, so I'm standing there on there on there ramp, like a dumbass, and the chopper lurches forward just ever so slightly.
When the bird went forward, in keeping with the laws of physics....I went aft which, as luck would have it, put me in the exact spot where the helicopter was only a moment before. Only now, there was no helicopter there. It was so smooth, it probably looked like I did it on purpose. I did a half-flip and fell away from the helicopter face up, staring back at little Marine faces staring over the ramp at me as I fell away toward the Earth. Its really amazing - the time you have for thinking during a situation like this. I actually had time to formulate the following thought:
"Oh man....I cant' believe I just fell out of a helicopter. This just totally sucks ass."
The desert floor is hard. When you thing about it, grains of sand are really just tiny rocks. It would be nice if God's favorite ting was cotton or something soft but no...His favorite thing is dirt. I mean, look how much of it He made. Now....I could have just smacked the Earth, got killed, and been done with it, right? Wrong. I hit the lip of a about a 30 ft favine which was full of much larger grains of sand, commonly known as "boulders." So there I landed, at the bottom of the ravine, ass up, on my back. This is know in the medical community as "impacting mulitple stationary objects."
By the time I regained consciousness, the helicopter had landed and all my buds were standing at the lip of the ravine peering down at me, doing guess what? Taking bets on whether I was dead or not. Why? Because they are Marines. I actually heard this statement, "Oh, twenty bucks says he's fuckin dead, man."
So I lifted one finger which is "I have just fallen out a helicopter" language for: "I have not yet completed the dying process."
If I hadnt' been dressed from head to toe in combat gear, I would without doubt be completely dead now. I was cut and bruised on every inch of my body, but amazingly, the most serious injury was an inverse sprain to the right ankle. I actually finished the excercise and walked out of the desert with everyone else two weeks later.
Lesson: "Please remain seated until the aircraft lands and comes to a complete stop."
