Common Perceptions About Parachutes

Name:
Professor’s name:
Course:
Date:
Scientific Paper
Citation
BIBLIOGRAPHY Yeh, Robert W., Valsdottir, L. R., Yeh, M. W., Shen, C., Kramer, D. B., Strom, J. B., Secemsky, E. A., Healy, J. L., Domeier, R. M., Kazi, D. S., & Nallamothu, B. K. "Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping." British Medical Journal (2018): 1-6.
Abstract
The use of parachutes for both recreational and military purposes builds on the premise of their perceived ability to traumatic injuries and even fatal incidences of death upon jumping from the different types of aircrafts. The perceived ability of parachutes to prevent the outlined adverse effects remains to be a common perception yet to be proven through scientific research and analysis on their efficacy. It is for this reason that the authors seek to determine the efficacy of parachutes when jumping from aircrafts in preventing major traumatic injuries and death on its users. Using a randomized controlled trial on both private and commercial aircrafts, the researchers evaluated the use of parachutes when jumping from an aircraft in comparison to jumping from the same with an empty backpack. A sample of 23 participants enrolled in the randomized trial upon which the researchers concluded that:
* The use of parachute had no significant effect in reducing death or preventing traumatic injuries among its users.
* Randomized trial for the interventions faced a challenge of low enrollment of participants due to its high risk and thus impacting the results, which further restricts its application to clinical practice.
Introduction
A majority of individuals who use parachutes to jump from aircrafts often partake in such risky activity under the common perception and belief that they are safe and highly effective in preventing death and traumatic injuries on the users. However, military personnel as well as other individuals who jump from aircrafts for recreational purpose are known to suffer injuries and even fatal incidences of death from such activities while using parachutes. Evidence supporting the use of parachutes to protect users from fatal incidences such as death and other traumatic injuries is only superficial as it depends on plausible biological functions and the opinions of experts from both the healthcare and aviation sectors. Recognized as parachutist injuries by the World Health Organization’s 10th revision of the international classification of diseases, the negative outcomes of the use of parachutes call for a review of their efficacy in jumping from aircrafts (Yeh, pg. 1). Nevertheless, randomized control trials have not previously been used to evaluate the efficacy of parachute use in jumping from aircrafts. Such an experiment would involve the use of expensive equipment and involve a high risk for the participants and thus posing a challenge towards carrying out randomized trials for parachute use. Moreover, undertaking the randomized trials based on actual high altitude jumps by individuals with parachutes verses those with backpacks would be impractical and raise ethical issues for the research study. The researchers carried out a randomized clinical control trial to address the following question:
* How effective is th...