Incredible Video: NZ Chopper Snaps, Crashes While Setting Up Christmas Tree

A New Zealand helicopter pilot is lucky to be alive today, after he survived an horrific crash while trying to set up a large Christmas tree. The Daily Mail describes what happened:

Television viewers in New Zealand watched in horror as the blades of Greg Gribble's helicopter became tangled in cables attached to scaffolding on Auckland's waterfront.

Dramatic footage shows the rear of the helicopter snapping, flinging Mr Gribble out of the front door of the helicopter, then slamming him back through its side door.

The aircraft then dropped 25ft to the ground.

The Hindustan Times adds:

Television footage showed the pilot, clad in a fluorescent safety vest, being tossed around the cockpit like a rag doll, appearing to fall out of the chopper's door before his harness snapped him back inside.

The aircraft slammed into the ground, with the cockpit surviving in one piece and the pilot, named in local media as Greg Gribble, walking away with help from two co-workers, who clambered on the wreckage to free him.

Gribble, an experienced chopper pilot with thousands of flying hours, was taken to hospital for precautionary monitoring and later released.

No one on the ground was hurt either. You can watch the dramatic footage below (the first video is experiencing intermittent trouble, so we've included the second one):