Jumpers safe after parachuting accident

By Nigel Hutchinson-Brooks - Christian Science Sentinel, July 6, 1998

During the few weeks before military parachute training started, I studied the ninety-first Psalm very carefully. Beginning with the first verse -

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty

I reasoned that if I wanted to abide under the shadow of the Almighty, I needed to dwell in His secret place. Dwelling in that secret place, to me, means discerning God’s presence and allness around me, everywhere, all the time, in any circumstance. The psalm continues, describing protection from all sorts of things—fear of the night, pestilence, disease, and accident. God shall send His angels to

bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone,

it promises at one point (verse 12).

In this type of parachuting, soldiers jump from either side of the airplane. Also, the parachutes have no rip cords; they are to open automatically. One day when we were supposed to practice, the winds were gusting. In fact, conditions were so severe that it was almost unsafe to jump, but we were told to proceed.

I was the last man to go out my side. As I jumped, a gust of wind blew, so instead of being a safe distance from the man who jumped before me, I was only three or four feet away, just behind and above him. As his parachute opened, I fell feet first right between his rigging lines and out the other side. My parachute never opened; it just bunched into a great glob of canvas and slid down the rigging lines, completely covering his head, face, and shoulders, and collapsing his parachute.

This all happened at 800 feet, so there wasn’t much time before we were to hit the ground. And without the benefit of opened parachutes, we were falling a lot faster than normal. In fact, we were almost in free fall, with just a little bit of canvas providing some braking effect. Above me was a tangle of rigging lines and parachute material. Below, I saw a khaki vehicle with a big red cross on its roof racing toward where we were headed. “Uh-oh,” I thought to myself, “they think we’re in trouble!”

It went through my mind at lightning speed that generally you think you have control over things. Yet here I was in a situation where there was absolutely nothing I could do to help myself. I saw in my mind a sort of slide show of ideas, of dwell-ing in the secret place of the most High and of divine protection. He shall send His angels to bear thee up lest thou dash thy foot against a stone, I recalled (see Ps. 91:11, 12). There was no time to think the words —the concepts just came straight to my mind. Click, click, click came the ideas from the ninety-first Psalm.
I remember thinking very consciously, and I may have even said it aloud,

All right, God, it’s up to You, because there’s nothing I can do.

I felt myself completely giving over the situation to God, even though I still didn’t know what God could do to help.I later heard from people who were watching from the ground that I hit the ground, took a bit of a roll, bounced about ten feet into the air, and landed, sprawled out. But before the crew on the ground could get to me, I was on my feet. And the other man was OK, too. We both got up and walked away.

So, what had God done? In a situation in which the laws of physics dictate that the human body can handle only a certain level of force, God revealed those so-called laws to be null and void. Superseded by divine law, they were powerless to affect us. No one watching could believe it. We’d hit the ground at almost seventy miles an hour. The ambulance crew just shook their heads in disbelief.

It was significant to me that not only was I saved but the other man was fine as well. I thought to myself, If you obey the laws of God and are conscious that He is your helper, your protector, and the source of your being, it’s amazing what will happen.

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