When I was a shooter, one of my guys got sucked into an A-6 and survived. He made it because he'd cut the chin strap off his helmet. It had been chaffing him and the air boss yelled at anyone with a dangleing strap, so he cut it off. He was the topside PO and as he cleared the A-6 (at full throttle), it picked him up. As he went into the intake, his helmet came off, hit the compressor blades, and the resulting compressor stall blew him back out. He was wearing a dungaree shirt, a flight deck jersey ,and a foul weather jacket. When he was blown out his right arm was bare. The forces inside the intake had ripped the sleeves of all three shirts off. His only injury was a minor burn on his exposed right sholder. He sat out one launch and wqs back on deck for the following one. On my next cruise, the guy that was sucked into an A-7 wasn't so lucky.
http://imageshack.us/?x=my6&myref=http://imageshack.us/index.php
Was sitting in ready one watching the PLAT flight deck camera when it happened on TR. Kid was n TR TV the next day with a couple of very black eyes and a little deaf.
during Desert Storm, on the Ranger they parked our Hummers behind the island next to the crash shack and on one particular launch we were turning and burnin' ready to come out when a yellow shirt came running out from behind the shack next to the stbd engine and was making a B-line for the prop arc when a troubleshooter literally tackled the guy down and saved his Ass, needless to say he got the biggest ass chewing i've ever seen from our flight deck Chief :icon_smil
