Abstract: On March 6, 2011, Employee #1 and two coworkers, all firefighters, were practicing an experimental emergency bailout procedure. Based upon a photographic slide viewed in a previous training session, the three man crew used a chair placed against a wall as an anchor along with another backup secure anchor in an emergency bailout exercise. One of the coworkers acted as the "edge attendant" while Employee #1 bailed out of the window and began to repel 16 feet to the sidewalk below. As he repelled down 6 feet, the chair that his rope was anchored to flipped out of the window. The backup, secure anchor did not engage immediately because of too much rope slack behind the anchor chair and too much slack in front of the secure anchor. Employee #1 fell 10 feet to the sidewalk, landing on his back. He sustained a fracture to his back and was hospitalized for treatment.