It's normal ejection at high speed is no joke.It has long lasting effects.
Air Forces around the world did studied those effects and published them,there are few abstracts out of them.
Injuries associated with the use of ejection seats
RAF.
The medical problems encountered with ejection can be classified as follows:
- Injuries from the emergency that causes ejection—fire or collision.
- Canopy jettison: burns from “MDC splatter” and cuts from fragmented plastic. For these reasons, aircrew are always advised to wear their visors down, to protect the face.
- Firing of ejection gun: spinal injuries.
- Entering airflow: wind blast may cause lung damage; seat tumbles at variable speed, which may be as high as 180 rpm. (All seats have a drogue parachute or deployable aerodynamic panels to prevent tumbling); flail injuries to extremities.
- Parachute deployment: snatch injuries.
- Landing: lower limb injuries.
Probably the most serious injuries are those of the head and spinal column. There are many factors that influence whether aircrew who eject sustain a spinal fracture or not. These include: the design of the seat, aircraft speed and attitude at time of ejection and age of the patient.
It is generally accepted that radiographic evidence of vertebral fracture can be found in 30%–70% of aircrew after ejection.To avoid excessively high acceleration rates, the ejection gun fires in three stages with a short delay between each (a few milliseconds). Individual vertebrae are able to withstand large compressive loads if applied at right angles to the plane of the intervertebral disc. However, because of engineering constraints the initial thrust is an impulsive load that is experienced at an angle to the long axis of the spine. In our case, the navigator who was severely injured was given no warning of the ejection as there was not enough time. This is called a command ejection. The ejection seat had a power retraction unit fitted, however, which would have ensured his spine was aligned in the correct position before any seat movement occurred.
The lower thoracic spine is especially prone to injury.This part of the spine is subjected to the static load of the trunk and head transmitted through the vertebrae above it. At this region of the spinal column the vertebral end plate has the highest loading per unit area.The vertebral bodies act as dampers, the blood within them being squeezed out under compression, before vertebral collapse or fracture.
Spinal injuries from ejection do occur at other sites, as demonstrated in the cases that have been described here. The mechanism of the injuries we have described is complex and includes several factors such as aerodynamic helmet lift, head flail, impact of the head on the ejection seat head box.
https://emj.bmj.com/content/17/5/371
Injuries associated with the use of ejection seats in Finnish pilots.
During the years 1958-91 17 Finnish pilots were forced to use ejection seats. The aircraft types were as follows: a) BA Hawk in 6 instances; b) a Mig 21-F-13 in 4; c) a Mig-21-Bis in 3; d) a Gnat Folland in 2; e) a Vampire Trainer in 1; and f) a MU-3 in 1 case. There were 3 ejections completed successfully, 12 pilots sustained slight injuries, and 5 pilots suffered major injuries--3 from compression fractures of the thoracic spine, 1 from fracture of the femur, and 1 from rupture of the medial collateral ligament of the knee. All major injuries were associated with Soviet aircraft. One BA-Hawk pilot died due to a direct impact against a tree after a low-altitude ejection. Two pilots launched the seat under negative G-forces. One of these became temporarily blind, and suffered a partial loss of vision for 3 months. Four Hawk pilots were saved during landing phase by a tandem ejection, receiving only minor injuries.
Ejection associated injuries within the German Air Force from 1981-1997.
From 1981-1997 there were 86 ejections from 56 aircraft within the German Air Force. Of these, 24 accidents were associated with the F-104 Starfighter, 14 with the PA 200 Tornado, 12 from the F-4 Phantom, 5 from the Alpha Jet and 1 from a MiG 29 Fulcrum. One case involved a front seat pilot, who had already sustained fatal injuries from midair collision, being command ejected by the rear seat pilot. The remaining 85 ejections are the basis of this study. One weapons system officer died from hypothermia after landing in the sea and another from bleeding into the medulla oblongata after flailing; all other participants survived. This is an overall success 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. At the time of ejection, all uninjured crews were flying below 3500 ft altitude and below 260 kn airspeed. Of all ejections from each aircraft type, the percentage of vertebral fractures is highest with the F-4 Phantom (31.8%), followed by the F-104 (16.6%) and the PA 200 Tornado with only 14.8%. The PA 200 is equipped with the most modern type of ejection seat of these aircraft. A conclusion of the gained data is that more modern ejection seat types provide lower injury severity but not fewer total injury numbers, and that the medical data taken during accident investigation should be taken more accurately and in a more standarized fashion to be comparable.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/1510649/
