I did not hear if he jumped into the water wearing his lifejacket, I was allways told that a jump of over 15 feet may break your neck upon impact of the water. I am only asking as this could be somthing that may help out on of us in the future if we are fighting a fire and have to ditch because we could not getg to a boat (and somhow get a lifejacket).
To my understanding if you donn the life jacket properly and have been trained to jump from 15-30 FT it is perfectly safe for the most part. (STCW 95 BST)
As part of my training, in the fall of 1982 I jumped into the Bagduce River (Castine, Maine) from the deck of the old TV State of Maine; I was fully clothed, steel toe boots, lifejacket, and was about 30-40 feet above the water. It was no problem: I had my legs crossed, looked straight ahead, and had both hands crossed holding the collar of my lifejacket. landed like a charm. slicker then a smelt.
the fact that the water temperature was in the 40’s or 50’s lead to some severe shrinkage.
thanks for the reply’s guys, I have been thinking about that from the start of this whole mess, it was 3 weeks since I was told this again during my BST refresher, I am glad to know that it can be done safely. One other tidbit of wrong info I was taught in school, when you have a runaway anchor, throw the riding pawl down. Well I had an anchor runaway on me and watched from the manual brake as the pawl just jumped right back at my AB’s as they tried to put it down. Thank God that they were very short.