While I never got to personally experience or even see things like this because I was based at a somewhat (yeah right) airfield. We did however come into contact with a lot of ground pounders and get to talk to them while they were awaiting their turn to be airlifted into combat. One of the things that a few of the soldiers revealed about some of the landing zones as well as places where they wandered was that if you saw people working out in a rice paddy or other area but avoiding a nearby area that it was better to avoid those spots. Generally speaking, there was something there that kept the locals out, and should have been a clue to others. Either the bottom of the area was not suitable for walking, like the video, muddy and would suck you down much like the woman in the video, but with even more dire consequences simply because there was a foot or two of water over the mud, so drowning was an immediate threat. The other option was that the Viet Kong or North Vietnamese had planted mines in the paddy during the dry season and they awaited anyone or anything to wander by and step on one of the explosives.
Our company, based in the Mekong Delta lost a UH-1H helicopter during the dry season of 1967. I don't remember the exact date but it was in November or December when many of the rice paddies were dry and made good landing areas for the helicopters dropping troops or standing by to pick up troops. I heard this story when the aircraft returned to the airfield with one not returning and the crew of the missing aircraft getting out of one of the returning aircraft. As usual us hanger rats came out to the helicopter parking area as the aircraft carefully maneuvered into their assigned revetments and shut down. When we asked where the missing aircraft was, we were told that the entire flight had landed in a nice open flat area to standby for the extraction of the troops they had just inserted several clicks away. The aircraft were landing in a trail formation and as the helicopter set down on the rear of the skids and started to drop down forward one of the skids set off a land mine which blew out the bottom of the helicopter, dumping whatever JP4 fuel was which immediately ignited into a fireball enveloping the helicopter. All four of the crewmembers made it out of the burning helicopter with only very minor injuries, but subsequently ran through the mind field while escaping the burning helicopter. When the other aircraft saw the explosion the ones that had not set down yet, didn't and the ones already on the ground lifted back off. The aircraft repositioned to another nearby area, one of the aircraft came to the rescue of the four aircrew that were standing some distance from their burning helicopter. They climbed into the hovering helicopter and were taken to the new staging area where a medic had a look at them. Their protective equipment and fireproofed flight clothing had done it's job and kept them from being burned any more than first degree burns, similar to a bad sunburn on exposed areas of their lower faces where the flight helmet did not cover them protecting them from the flames. The worst injury were a few pieces of shrapnel that had to be removed from the back of the legs of the Door Gunner who was sitting directly over the area where the mine detonated.
The moral of the story was that, like the woman who got out of her van and was immediately sucked into the mud, places that look safe, often aren't.
Many years later when undergoing instructor survival training for tropical areas, one thing mentioned was quicksand. One of the methods of escaping quicksand was to drop onto your back and then do a swimming backstroke to pull yourself to safety. The theory behind this is that while your weight supported by your feet and legs applied a lot of pressure, allowing you to be sucked down like an arrow hitting the ground and sinking into it, if you laid down your weight would be distributed over a much larger area which would slow or stop the sinking, the backstroke was a means of propelling you over the ground to a safe area. Does it work? Heck if I know, I've never encountered quicksand and don't know anybody else that has. One thing is for sure. If you find yourself in quicksand, struggling standing up will only result in you being sucked down faster. Keep your wits, shed a backpack if you are wearing one and lay down and start swimming. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I just did some research on the helicopter blown up, and will continue and post anything I can find. From what I understand there were a lot of photos taken.
This is what I have found so far:
On
March 11, 1967, a UH-1D "slick" transport helicopter from the 114th Assault Helicopter Company triggered a powerful, hidden landmine as its skid touched down in a dry rice paddy landing zone in the Mekong Delta. The blast immediately ruptured the under-floor fuel cells, triggering a massive fireball. Astonishingly, because the aircraft had just touched down and hadn't rolled or flipped violently, the entire four-man crew was able to scramble out of the burning wreckage before the fire consumed the cabin. [
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Soldiers in a trailing helicopter or on the ground captured a series of raw, dramatic color slides showing the thick black smoke and intense flames engulfing the airframe in the wide-open, dried mud flats.
