Ron Gordon – If you don’t concentrate, things can go wrong
It just shows you how things can go wrong not listening to what you’re meant to do. Yeah, just simple.
I mean I did it on my last parachute jump. We did the night jump off Jersey, and I was a bit blasé, near the end of my time at the Tank, it was my last parachute jump, it was night time and you’re in the full gear and part of the gear is your knife, which is in your sheath there.
Anyway, we checked each other, and we got through and off I went out and as I counted to four, I suddenly felt a bang right across there, somewhere. And it was my knife, had come out of the sheath. I hadn’t checked it was secured properly and it just swung up and hit me right there. Of course, when I landed in the water and they dragged me onboard, blood was everywhere.
That could have been a lot worse, and it was just so careless of me, and it could have just happened to anyone. Just not paying attention. You take it for routine and that’s what I try to get through to my guys at the Escape Tank all the time.
You know, that was four years of just being on the ball all the time. And it was good for later life because you never know what’s going to happen. Never.