You might think that if people are going to jump out of aeroplanes they can legitimately expect to sustain injuries. For people who find themselves on the end of a parachute, broken ankles are a surprisingly common result.
The parachutist’s impact with the ground is usually described as the same as that experienced when jumping off a 12-foot wall. Today’s invention is a way to help minimise the damage caused -especially to novice jumpers.
It is essentially a pair of stiff overboots (like fishing waders) with a large patch of industrial strength velcro on the inside of each leg, from toe to inner thigh. These can be tightly bonded during descent by bending one’s knees slightly and smacking one’s legs together, just before impact. This spreads the load when soles meet earth and allows a much less jarring parachute landing fall to occur.
