How do parachutes make it safer to fall?

In my last post, I talked about terminal velocity and how it was different according to the situation. Ducklings have a smaller terminal velocity than humans because they are a lot lighter. Another way to reduce the terminal velocity is to increase the cross sectional area of the falling object. You can think of cross sectional area as what you get if you light up the object from straight above and look at the shadow on the ground. The shadow of a parachute is a lot larger than the shadow of a human. The large cross sectional area of the parachute reduces the terminal velocity of the human attached to it and makes for a much gentler landing.