1937 HOLD THE RING
During a routine drill, a fireman in Lambeth casually steps off a high roof as his colleagues wait below, holding a trampoline-like device to break his fall. The ‘jumping sheet’ was intended to save the lives of people trapped in burning buildings up to six stories high. However, in reality they often did the opposite. At a hotel fire in Amsterdam in 1977, some guests threw their luggage onto the sheet before jumping, while others hit the rim, resulting in a number of casualties. They were phased out in the 1980s.
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