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A British soldier is lucky to be alive after he crashed through the roof of a California home when his parachute failed to fully open during a training exercise. The soldier, who has not been identified, was taking part in a High Altitude Low Opening exercise with a group from Camp Roberts, a California National Guard Base located in central California between San Jose and Los Angeles.
The soldier jumped from the plane at 15,000 feet, but his parachute failed to fully open, sending him into a spiral as he tumbled towards the ground. He crashed through the roof of a home in Atascadero, which is about 200 miles north of Los Angeles.
There was nobody home when the soldier crashed through the roof, but neighbors saw what happened and rushed to help.
"So I ran in to make sure he was okay, and I checked on him, and his eyes were open, but I wasn't sure if there were any injuries. I didn't want anyone to move him," Rose Martin, who is a registered nurse, told KSBY.
Martin said that the soldier was conscious when she got inside and that he told her that he was in pain. Miraculously, he suffered relatively minor injuries as he crashed through the roof and landed on the kitchen floor. He was taken to the hospital for treatment.
"Came through the roof, through the tresses, and there's not that much damage in the house," Linda Sallady, the homeowner's mother, told the news station. "It's amazing. It's mostly the ceiling, the sheetrock. He missed the counters, appliances, everything."
Officials said that the other members of the training group landed safely in the designated target area.