Reinhard, who died in July 2020, told researcher Rick Boos in the late 1990s that when he reached down to snip the antenna, he observed an electrostatic arc. “Gus said that he was ready and we slid over,” Reinhard told Boos. “When I touched the antenna, there was an arc.” Reinhard explained that the cookie cutter included two blades with two explosive squibs. At the same time he saw the electrostatic discharge, he recalled, “both [squibs] had gone off without my activating them, and they were on two separate switches!” Pressed by Boos to clarify his observation, Reinhard was unequivocal: “When I touched the antenna there was an arc, and both cutters fired. At the same time, the hatch came off. It could be that some static charge set [the hatch] off.”
While Reinhard did not see the hatch actually blow, he did observe the hatch skipping several feet from the spacecraft, followed seconds later by Grissom, who managed to wedge his way out of the narrow hatch opening. The 5-foot 7-inch (1.7m) astronaut had removed his helmet as water poured into his spacecraft, grabbed the right side of his cockpit display panel, and abandoned ship. He later stated he had “never moved faster.”