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Falling on a grenade is the deliberate act of using one's body to cover a livetime-fusedhand grenade, absorbing the explosion and fragmentation in an effort to save the lives of others nearby. Since this is almost universally fatal, it is considered an especially conspicuous and selfless act of individual sacrifice in wartime. InUnited States military history, more citations for theMedal of Honor, the country's highest military decoration, have been awarded for falling on grenades to save comrades than any other single act.[citation needed][1]
Such an act can be survivable: InWorld War I British soldierJohn Carmichael was awarded theVictoria Cross for saving his men by putting his steel helmet over a grenade and then standing on the helmet to reduce the blast damage. Carmichael survived although it was several years before he recovered sufficiently to be discharged from the hospital.[2]
InWorld War II,U.S. MarineJack Lucas, in theBattle of Iwo Jima, leapt onto an enemy grenade, jamming it into the volcanic ash and soft sand with his rifle and covering it with his body, while reaching out and pulling another one beneath him. One grenade exploded, severely injuring him and the other failed to detonate. Lucas lived, but spent the rest of his life with over 200 pieces of shrapnel in his body.[3] In 2008 nearSangin inAfghanistan, BritishRoyal MarineMatthew Croucher used his rucksack to pin a tripwire grenade to the floor. His body armour absorbed the majority of the blast.
On November 21, 2010, inMarjah,Helmand Province,Afghanistan in support ofOperation Enduring Freedom, U.S. Marine Lance CorporalKyle Carpenter threw himself upon a grenade, to save a fellow Marine in his sandbagged position, sustaining injuries to his face and right arm and losing his right eye. He survived these wounds. Despite these rare instances, the odds of survival are extremely slim. With modern medicine, however, odds are greatly increased when compared to falling on a grenade in the 20th century.