The two men only survived because Coxwell, whose limbs were also paralysed, used his teeth to pull the rope to vent hydrogen from the balloon.
ECONOMIST: The science of survival
2.
The chapter on surviving at high altitude, for example, tells the story of James Glaisher and Henry Coxwell, who, in 1862, ascended in a balloon to an altitude of about 10, 000 metres (33, 000 feet).