The Supreme Court has confirmed the five-month prison sentence imposed on an Army captain for making a student on an assault diving course jump from a height of 15 metres, who had to undergo back surgery after the fall. The judges confirm that this military commander ignored the warnings of other course leaders while saying that “there are no first sergeants like before left”. Two years after this accident, A sergeant died in that same swamp from Huesca during the same assault diver course.
The events occurred in May 2019 when several soldiers were taking an assault diver course with the Pontoneros and Specialties regiment in Aragon. The activity that day was to go to the El Grado reservoir in Huesca and jump from a high point in order to have to do the same but from a helicopter. Until then, the students had jumped from six meters high in Cartagena and at first those responsible for the course decided that the jump in El Grado was going to be from ten meters.
It was shortly after the first jump that the then lieutenant of the Army took the soldiers to a higher area, almost 15 metres, against the advice of other officials. One soldier lost his balance when jumping and fell into the water “slightly seated” so that “he hit the water of the reservoir violently”. The result: a lumbar injury for which he had to undergo surgery in Zaragoza.
The action of the convicted man, forcing the soldiers to jump from 15 metres in spite of the opposition of those in charge of the course, was described as “foolish” by the Supreme Court, which confirmed the five-month prison sentence imposed by the military courts. “An illusory and false act of courage in ordering that the risk be taken by third parties,” the fifth chamber of the high court reproached.
The risk of making the students jump from a height of 15 metres was “more than foreseeable” for the then lieutenant and now captain, especially since the sergeant in charge of the exercise told him so on several occasions.
“There was no need to jump from such a height of almost 15 metres without the appropriate training,” said the Supreme Court, among other things because the following day the exercise of jumping from a helicopter was going to be done from less than 10 metres high and was not necessary to pass the course.
Source: www.eldiario.es
