Parachute Drama

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29339, 19 October 1960, Page 12

Parachute Drama

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) PARIS (Ontario), October 17.

A man saved another man’s life yesterday as they hurtled together through space from an aircraft 3000 feet above Paris.

As they clung to each other. Corporal Alfred Coxall, aged 33, a Canadian Army surveyor, pulled the ripcord on the parachute of George van Roosmalen, whose hand was paralysed. Then Coxall opened his own parachute. The two men landed 50 feet apart on the Paris golf course. They were not hurt, but Coxall massaged the other’s arm. Five hundred persons watched the mid-air drama that began when van Roosmalen, aged 21, a student parachute jumper, became tangled in jumping from the aircraft and dangled at the end of a line. The line wrapped his right arm tightly against his body and prevented him from pulling the ripcord. While he swayed 15 feet below the plane. Coxall broke part of the instrument panel and began cutting the cord. - Van Roosmalen signalled that his arm was paralysed and that he could not pull the ripcord.

Coxall then slid down the line, a tape, one and a hair inches wide. It snapped. “For a few seconds,” Coxall said, “we were clinging to each other. Then I pulled the ripcord of his reserve chute. I waited a few seconds to get clear and then opened my own parachute.”