Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, but this time it was from a ladder truck, not a wall.

Green Gables Elementary fifth-graders celebrated the school’s annual egg drop tradition this week, watching with glee as South King Fire & Rescue firefighters dropped packages containing the students’ carefully-cushioned eggs to the hard pavement below.

Firefighters dropped dozens of eggs June 13 to the excited chants of “Drop it!” from the students. A lucky few eggs with makeshift parachutes, popcorn shields or other physics-based contraptions found their shells and yolk meet the earth unscathed.

The rest: Splat.

The egg drop is an independent end-of-the-year project. Kids are given an egg and one week to build something to keep it from cracking. It’s a practical lesson in the rules of physics: Contraptions succeed if they can expand the surface area of the eggs, such as through parachutes, which increase air resistance and slow the descent. Surrounding the eggs with densely-packed but soft materials allows the shocking force of impact to distribute more gently.

Bill Fuller, a former volunteer firefighter, is now a South King Fire & Rescue commissioner and full-time para-educator at Green Gables. The school has performed the egg drop for five years, but only this year have the eggs been dropped from the fire department ladder truck — which Fuller arranged at his fellow teacher’s request.

Green Gables principal Kent Cross said the egg drop is one of several traditions the school ends the year with for the fifth-graders.

“This has been a tradition, minus the COVID year we were remote,” Cross said.

And while the kids cheer effusively for the surviving eggs, there’s no hard feelings for the ones that break, assistant principal Tricia Ebel said. Nearly all of the students still walked away with smiles.

It’s no surprise that this is one of the better days on the job for the SKFR firefighters.

“These are the events that the firefighters truly appreciate,” SKFR spokesperson Brad Chaney said. “We run a lot of calls. We see a lot of tragic things, over and over and over again. Out here, you have a school full of kids smiling, jumping, cheering for you. … That just recharges the soul. It helps us carry on with the mission of serving the community.”

It’s also a chance to show kids how firefighters carry themselves and do the job. Chaney said they’ll often get one or two kids from events like these who discover an interest in a fire service career.

“You always get at least one,” Chaney said.

A student at Green Gables elementary celebrates their successful egg drop with SKFR Driver-Engineer Adam Joyner. Alex Bruell / The Mirror

Firefighter Tyler Morris drops an egg payload to the ground from atop a South King Fire & Rescue ladder. Alex Bruell / The Mirror

A student at Green Gables elementary celebrates their successful egg drop with SKFR Driver-Engineer Adam Joyner. Alex Bruell / The Mirror