Parachute horror story
AN AMERICAN paratrooper was sucked out of an aircraft when his reserve parachute snagged and accidentally opened as he crouched on the ramp of a C-130 Hercules, waiting to jump.
He was dragged out as his shocked colleagues watched helplessly. But the chute continued functioning and he landed safely, 50km from the intended drop zone.
All's well that ends well – so long as he didn't fetch up in a nudist colony.
No parachute
THE ABOVE recalls an incident in Johannesburg some years ago when a photographer (with whom I had shared a few experiences in Angola) borrowed from our foreign news service a super-duper camera. He wanted to get shots from above of an attempt at a record-breaking formation skydive.
That evening a few of us were in a popular hostelry when in came the photographer, carrying the borrowed camera. He was scratched, bleeding and bruised. He looked as if he'd been through a hammer mill.
He told his story. He had been in the doorway of the Dakota with the borrowed camera, focusing on the parachutists as they manoeuvred through the air below, when suddenly he was sucked outside by a draught of air.
He himself (though a keen skydiver) had no parachute. But his leg caught in a leather strap in the doorway, and there he streamed outside, banging repeatedly against the outside fuselage of the Dak. Nobody else was in the aircraft apart from the pilot. No assistance.
He was about to kick himself free of the strap then freefall toward the formation skydivers, hoping to grab one by the legs and hang on, when suddenly a kind of reverse draught sucked him back inside the aeroplane.
The room temperature dropped as everyone's blood froze. Then the stern voice of our bureau chief, who was among the listeners: "You're damned lucky. If you'd dropped that camera of ours you'd have been in really big trouble."
Waltzing Matilda
MY SCOUTS in the Outer West region tell me the road-building gangs have greatly enlivened matters on the road between Hillcrest and Waterfall.
Until recently, all motorists had to do was weave a way between the huge potholes. But now they're widening the road. The potholes are still there but they've added "traffic calmers" – strip obstacles of metal with a curvature so steep they cause the traffic to leap high into the air, a severe test of every vehicle's shockabsorbers.
So progress down the Hillcrest-Waterfall road now consists of weaving and buckjumping, a kind of motorised Waltzing Matilda.
People are beginning to quite enjoy it and feel it will be a pity when the widening is complete and the potholes are filled in.
Er, they will be filled in … won't they?
Grabby lunch
MORE on that veterans' lunch at Maritzburg College. Sheila Swanepoel was there, seated between guest of honour Cyril Crompton and her 90-year-old father, Pieter Swanepoel (the second-oldest present). She spent the whole lunch relaying in a loud shout what each was trying to say to the other.
"'Vain old bugger!' said my Dad, in a loud voice. 'He won't wear a hearing aid'.
"Cyril was an absolute delight - he's 98 by the way, not 96. He wrote matric in 1933, so this was his 80th Reunion" - can it be called a reunion if you're the only one left?
"At one stage he leaned across and said to me: 'My dear, if there's anything I can do for you, don't mention it.'
"He went out in the rain, in the middle of lunch, to his car to get me a copy of his book, which I'm dying to read, but my Dad grabbed it first."
Very grabby they are in the Victoria Hall. It's the only way to get your share of the victuals. The book Sheila refers to is Luck's Favours (Echoing Green Press) which has an account by Cyril of a nightmarish midwinter forced march across eastern Europe as a POW of the Nazis.
Tailpiece
THEY were in bed watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?
He: "How about some slap and tickle?"
She: "No!"
He: "Is that your final answer?"
She: "Yes."
He: "I'd like to phone a friend."
That's when the fight started.
Last word
In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.
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