Jumping out of airplanes is inherently dangerous, but landing in a huge clump of trees is a situation all paratroopers want to avoid.
That, unfortunately, was exactly what one Canadian paratrooper faced in a video posted recently on military video site Funker 530. The U.S. Parachute Association notes that most tree landings are survivable, but that doesn't make them any less painful.
Army paratroopers typically jump out of aircraft using static-lines, which deploy their parachutes as soon as they exit the door. But unlike high-altitude skydives with more advanced chutes, troopers generally jump at lower heights and have less control over where they'll end up on the ground.
In essence, there's a lot more pressure on the pilots to get them to the right spot, and unfortunately for this trooper, the pilot missed the mark.
Only about 20 seconds after he's out the door with his chute deployed, he looks down to see trees. Lots of them. "You've got to be f--king kidding me," he says.
But what should have been disaster turns out to be almost a miracle, leaving him to laugh about his awesome luck of completely avoiding trees, branches, and all the other nasty hazards that were waiting for him.
Watch the full video (language warning):