Pensioner hit by ice that fell from plane

A pensioner cheated death when a chunk of ice plunged 2,000ft from a plane overhead and landed on his leg. David Gammon, 76, heard a whistling sound before the grapefruit-sized block of ice smashed into his left thigh.

The 2kg chunk narrowly missed his head and caused a huge purple bruise at the top of his leg. Mr Gammon, a retired banker, said he would "almost certainly" have been killed had the ice fallen just millimetres to the left.

"The first I knew was a huge whistling sound," he said. "The next thing I know I can feel something fly an inch past my head, came over my shoulder and landed in my lap with an almighty thud. I instinctively leapt into the air in disbelief before the pain kicked in. I looked around and there were bits of crushed ice lying around where I'd been sitting - alongside the huge block which had hit me."


Photo from here.

His wife, Pamela Gammon, 67, put the ice in the freezer before replacing it with ice cubes to reduce the swelling. "Ironically, I then sat there all night with ice on my lap to bring down the bruise," said Mr Gammon.

Mr Gammon limped to the doctors the following day, where medics were stunned there was no lasting damage to his left thigh. "I consider myself extremely lucky to be alive", he added. "If the trajectory was just an inch to the side it would have hit my head and certainly killed me at that speed."

A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said: "It is quite rare for ice to fall from planes and we are aware of this particular incident. "There were only 19 instances in the whole of last year where ice has fallen from planes, although for it to actually hit someone is extremely uncommon."