Soldier Saved by Instructor after Accidentally Dropping Grenade

(Video Link)

This footage from Guangdong province, China, shows an army recruit learning how to throw a grenade. Summation: he sucks at it.

Instead of throwing the grenade over a protective wall, he drops it just a few feet away from where he and his instructor are standing.

The instructor, noting the problem, dives for a trench, pulling the recruit in with him. They both survive, apparently unharmed.

-via Daily Telegraph (warning: auto-start video)

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Equipment failure kills a person just as surely as human error. And it's likely that a person is supposed to inspect the equipment before use, which would mean it's back to human error again, albeit maybe not the trainee's error if he's not the one that inspected that equipment.

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From the look of it, the grenade was on some kind of handle, and fell off of the handle while being thrown. Unless there is some technique for holding the explosive on its handle during the throw, I'd blame this on equipment failure.

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I assume that's why they built two pits? With only one, the grenade might be dragged in with the people should it fall along their path near the pits edge.

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Having gone through boot camp, I can tell you three things for certain.
1. This is common...
2. ... so common that they dug that pit specifically for that reason...
3. ... so common that the instructor is trained to have his hand on the trainee's belt specifically to get a secure grip on him to throw/pull them both down into the pit quickly.

The really rare thing here is that they actually got it on video.

It's a good thing they plan for these eventualities so thoroughly. BTW, the kill zone for a grenade is about 20-40 ft, so without that planning, they'd both be ground meat.