From their website difficult to see how anyone could fall out of that.
falling from 20 feet is much more likely to be survivable - yes we don't know their performance calcs or OEI capability but that still seems very high. A lateral move to better ground to ensure she is fully locked into the harness before the long winch in might have been prudent.
15-20' hover with a Puma over a housing area? There will be some serious downwash with that low hover blowing all kinds of crap around and possibly damaging stuff or bystanders in the area. Of course hoisting might be done from many different heights, depending on references for the pilots or hoist operator, waves, movement of the ship, visibility, possibility of blowing loose rocks/trees/++ that might hit those on the ground. So no definite answer to that (though we have a default of 80' that might be adjusted up or down to suit each mission).
Checking that the patients (and anyone connected to the wire or monkeystraps) are correctly locked into their harnesses should be mandatory whatever height the hoisting is done from and that might have saved her in the first place.
peace
