A hot air balloon pilot reported while landing they fell out of the balloon but were able to hold on to the 'red line' and retain control of the balloon.

Narrative

As I was about to land my hot air balloon on an old grass fairway; I was pulling on the red line to open the deflation port of the balloon so once I made ground contact with the balloon basket; I could finish landing and deflate the envelope. As I hit the ground and the top of the basket was tipping over in the direction of the landing; I lost my footing and balance on the bottom of the basket and fell out and over the basket top and onto the ground. At the time I fell out; I was probably not more than 3 feet from the ground. Even though I fell out of the basket; I still kept hold of the red line to continue the deflation. There was a crew member from another balloon that had already landed maybe 50 yards away; that came running over to assist with our landing as they saw we were coming down and were going to land. She grabbed the side of the basket and continued to hold on as the balloon basket touched down again and the envelope further deflated. The balloon was now down and was not going any further.I want to make a point; even though I fell out of the balloon basket onto the ground; I continued to hang on to the red line to continue deflation of the envelope until I knew the balloon was finished landing and everyone was safe. I also want to make a point that I had not fallen out of the basket until we made first ground contact. I continued to hold the red line until the basket came back down; maybe 3 feet; and stayed on the ground. As most of the red line had been pulled out; this other crew further pulled on the red line also. I then got up and went over and helped complete the deflation process and helped packing up the balloon. I was sent a picture someone had taken of this incident. I do not know if this picture was taken as a single shot or was one frame out of a video of me coming into land. I find it interesting that they could catch me in the photo at the precise moment that I looked face down like I was knocked out. In reality; my left hand still had a hold of the red line. I had pulled a lot of red line out and it was on the ground which my feet had got tangled with somewhat. My right arm was tucked up under me as I was about to get up. As you can see this crew person's feet were still on the ground as she was hanging on to the basket as it was coming back down to the ground. I have not seen any other pictures or video that maybe would have shown this whole incident that happened in just a few seconds. I can honestly say this one picture does not describe this incident as it happened. No one got hurt or was there any damage to the balloon or property.