Here's the Cypress Cutter device being demonstrated. This is what saved the guys in the vid above 3 seconds before they would have hit the deck:

that was close. lucky guy *promote

Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Saturday, November 8th, 2014 12:30am PST - promote requested by kulpims.

I would have thought paying attention to your distance from the ground would be pretty high on anyone's list of priorities after jumping out of an aeroplane.

Love that the guy only decided to check his altitude after he was on the ground.

I thought it was even better that he checked it over and over, I counted 5 times, as if he kept second guessing it and had to re-re-re-re-verify he was actually on the ground.

LMFAHS

Goggles with a heads up display showing altitude information might be a cool idea.

Or an altimeter with an audible warning?

True, although I wonder how loud it would have to be? Falling like that must be noisy.

They do exist, although these guys didn't have them, so the problem can't be insurmountable.

I remain unconvinced about the very idea of abandoning, in mid air, an aeroplane that's working perfectly well.

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

I do wonder if maybe they failed to calibrate it. Presumably it's barometric altitude, and the ground level could be well above sea level. Numerous airplanes have been lost to that same mistake.

Holy shit. What was going through their heads? I knew they were going to be safe because of the title, but still started to hyperventilate when it was clear they were waaaaaaaaaaayyyyy to close to the ground.

Looks like 8,500 feet. Even at 9,500 to 10,000 that gives you about 9 seconds for drogue and 6 seconds after that for main for nominal "safe" descent. They did neither. But it's not the US... other countries help us balance population.

I was thinking the same thing. Not that it mattered since he never checked it in the air anyway