I was curious how traumatic it can be. Went searching and found this abstract from a paper[1] studying ejections in the German Air Force from 1981-1997: "[86 e

I was curious how traumatic it can be. Went searching and found this abstract from a paper[1] studying ejections in the German Air Force from 1981-1997: "[86 ejections from 56 aircraft had an] overall success [(survival)] rate of 97.6%. Of all 85 participants, 12 (14%) were uninjured, 41 (48.2%) were slightly injured, and 30 (35.3%) were severely injured. Typical injuries were those of the spine and lower limbs. The most common severe injury was a vertebral fracture caused by ejection acceleration. This is followed by lower limb injuries received during the parachute landing fall." [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10596782 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10596782