Yikes! If you're close enough to be at all worried about the strop hitting you as it comes down, you are far, far too close to the winch for safety.
The only safe place is inside the winch cabin. If the cable breaks, it can violently whip backwards or sideways. I have seen a car written off by a snapped winch cable. I also had the memorable experience of driving a winch when the cable snapped, wrapped itself in a knot and then disintegrated as it hit the rollers, spraying fragments of cable thread all over the place with such force that some of them wrapped themselves around the chicken wire that protected the windscreen.
The spectator who I had insisted joined me in the cabin before the launch (thye had wanted to take photographs) went very quiet.