History Main / ParachuteInATree

This trope is very much TruthInTelevision both in military parachuting and recreational skydiving, and surviving such situation is a mandatory part of training. Pilots are equipped with hooked knives for slicing through their parachute cords if this becomes a problem and some military parachutes have releasable extended lines so that you can reach the ground if you are too high up to get down or risk a fall. In recreational skydiving it is usually better to hang on the harness and wait for help rather than to try to get yourself loose (and risk falling uncontrolled on the ground).

-----

[[folder: Advertising ]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

[[folder: Film -- Animated ]]

[[folder: Film -- Live Action ]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

[[folder: Music ]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'': Early on in the Operation: Anchorage DLC, you see a snagged paratrooper get gunned down by Chinese troops. In ''Point Lookout'', you find a parachute in a tree above the skeleton of the pilot, adjacent to his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-5hd5DSNsU crashed plane]] that contains an ApocalypticLog in the black box.

* Happens to ''VideoGame/LeisureSuitLarry'' in the 2nd game, when parachuting down to Nontoonyt Island. Your only way out is if you thought to bring along a knife. If you didn't, the game becomes {{Unwinnable}} as you're stuck hanging there.

[[folder: Web Comics ]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* And in the ''Commando'' comics, usually involving an evil German soldier who finds our hero in such a helpless state and is about to shoot him, until a third party pulls a BigDamnHeroes.

* Also during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, when the British parachute unit was new and they were still trying to hash out their methods, the top brass were not impressed when half the troops had to be rescued from trees by the local fire brigade after a parachuting demonstration.

* During the "Malayan Emergency" campaign in TheFifties Special Air Service actually practiced "tree jumping" ''deliberately'' - which was often inevitable, as four fifths of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}} Malay Peninsula]] is covered by jungle and helicopters of the era were limited in numbers and carrying capacity. Each trooper was issued with an extra length of rope to climb down the tree after his landing. Injuries still happened quite often and with increased number of helicopters was tree jumping gradually discontinued.

* ''VideoGame/GameAndWatch'': ''Parachute'''s Game B has the right string of skydivers possibly meeting this fate.

** In Level 3-1 of ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor: Frontline'', an Allied paratrooper is hung up on a windmill and killed by machine gun fire.

* On his first parachute jump into German-occupied Norway, Film/MaxManus ends up handing upside down from a tree. Fortunately his friend Gregers lands nearby and helps him down.

* This is how one first arrives in Sholazar Basin in ''WorldOfWarcraft''. That is, the ''pilot'' of the aircraft you're in ends up like this. Somehow, ''you'' miss the trees and land safely on the ground.

* In ''Film/TheCrazies'' (The Remake) they find the long-dead skeletal remains of a pilot who had this problem after ejecting.

* During D-Day, a paratrooper named John Steele became snagged on the church spire at Ste.-Mère-Eglise and played dead for two hours before being cut down and taken prisoner by the Germans. This was depicted in the movie ''Film/TheLongestDay'' as listed above. The church still has a monument to him and the other paratroopers, in the form of a statue of a paratrooper dangling from the spire.

* Averted by: [[UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons the Fallschirmjäger]], who were theoretically at risk of this, since (unlike American and British forces) their parachutes [[ArmoredCoffins weren't steerable]] ...but the Fallschirmjäger were largely used as regular infantry, or deployed by glider. The main campaigns in which they were airdropped were essentially treeless environments (Netherlands, Malta), and they could be dropped from extremely low altitudes (the upside of their choice of parachute is that it would fully deploy in under 40 meters), so it would seem unlikely for one to land in a tree.

* Another example from the war: [[UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons the Fallschirmjäger]] were theoretically at risk of this, since (unlike American and British forces) their parachutes [[ArmoredCoffins weren't steerable]] ...but since Fallschirmjäger were largely used as regular infantry, and were airdropped mostly in treeless environments (The Netherlands, Malta), from extremely low altitudes (the upside of their choice of parachute is that it would fully deploy in under 40 meters), the trope should have been largely avoided.

* Another example from the war: [[UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons the Fallschirmjäger]] were constantly at risk of this, since (unlike American and British forces) their parachutes [[ArmoredCoffins weren't steerable]].

* One history of the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships SAS Regiment]] related an anecdote from WorldWarII, about a trooper who got scattered away from the drop zone due to bad weather and landed in an orchard. Unable to see anything in the dark, and unwilling to risk injuring himself in a fall by cutting himself loose, he patiently waited for dawn, [[{{Irony}} only for first light to reveal his feet were half a foot above the ground]].
* Also during UsefulNotes/WorldWar2, when the British parachute unit was new and they were still trying to hash out their methods, the top brass were not impressed when half the troops had to be rescued from trees by the local fire brigade after a parachuting demonstration.

* This also occurs in Level 3-1 of ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor: Frontline'', where an Allied paratrooper is hung up on a windmill and killed by machine gun fire.

* ''VideoGame/MedalOfHonor: Allied Assault'''s Addon ''Spearhead'' has Parachute In A House, as the player once breaks through the roof of a barn and gets trapped several feet over the floor.

* During the "Malayan Emergency" campaign in TheFifties Special Air Service actually practiced "tree jumping" ''deliberately'' - which was often inevitable, as four fifths of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}} Malay Peninsula]] is covered by jungle and helicopters of the era were limited in numbers and carrying capacity. Each trooper was issued with a extra length of rope to climb down the tree after his landing. Injuries still happened quite often and with increased number of helicopters was tree jumping gradually discontinued.

* In one episode of ''TheYoungOnes'', after moving into a new house, Mike discovers Music/BuddyHolly, still alive and guitar in hand, hanging from a parachute in one of the rooms. He has apparently been there since 1959 (23 yeas at that point). Mike tries to capitalise on the songs Buddy has thought up since then only for the parachute to give way and Holly fall screaming through the floor.

* In an episode of ''FoylesWar'', a German WWII flier who is found hanging in a tree from his parachute after a plane crash is involved in a murder taking place at the same time. Played with in the sense that [[spoiler: the soldier did not in fact land with the parachute. He was transported in by a submarine and then hung himself up in the tree to make it look like he had been in the plane.]]

* Happens to ''LeisureSuitLarry'' in the 2nd game, when parachuting down to Nontoonyt Island. Your only way out is if you thought to bring along a knife. If you didn't, the game becomes {{Unwinnable}} as you're stuck hanging there.

* During the "Malayan Emergency" campaign in TheFifties Special Air Service actually practiced "tree jumping" ''deliberately'' - which was often inevitable, as four fifths of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}} Malay peninsula]] is covered by jungle and helicopters of the era were limited in numbers and carrying capacity. Each trooper was issued with a extra length of rope to climb down the tree after his landing. Injuries still happened quite often and with increased number of helicopters was tree jumping gradually discontinued.

* During the "Malayan Emergency" campaign in TheFifties Special Air Service actually practiced "tree jumping" ''deliberately'' - which was often inevitable, as four fifths of the [[UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}} Malay peninsula]] is covered by jungle and helicopters of the era were limited in numbers and carrying capacity. Each trooper was issued with a extra lenghth of rope to climb down the tree after his landing. Injuries still happened quite often and with increased number of helicopters was tree jumping gradually discontinued.

* During the "Malayan Emergency" campaign in TheFifties Special Air Service actually practiced "tree jumping" ''deliberately'' - which was often inevitable, as four fifths of the [[UsefulNotes/Malaysia Malay peninsula]] is covered by jungle and helicopters of the era were limited in numbers and carrying capacity. Each trooper was issued with a extra lenghth of rope to climb down the tree after his landing. Injuries still happened quite often and with increased number of helicopters was tree jumping gradually discontinued.

[[caption-width-right:250:[[TruthInTelevision Ste.-Mere-Eglise, Normandy]], [[WorldWarTwo 1944]].]]

* ''Series/CSIMiami'': In "Terminal Velocity", a skydiver is killed when his parachute is tampered with. His diving partner ends up dangling from a tree after he tries to save him. Horatio and Tripp interview him while he is still hanging from the tree.