Skydive crash

[Toe]

This is insane. How he survives I dont know?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/liv...0&in_a_source=

[Pelion]

wow

[Warpe]

I saw this on TV. The drag from his tangled chute probably slowed him down enough to keep it from being fatal.

[thenonsequitur]

Actually, according to the interview with him, he said that the drag from the tangled parachute probably only slowed him down from 120mph free fall speed (his estimated terminal velocity) to the 80mph impact speed. (Yeah, that extra 40mph maybe would have made it fatal, but 80mph would usually be fatal too).

He survived by hitting a very thick section of underbrush that absorbed the majority of the impact of his fall. He apparently left a very big and defined imprint where he landed, which shows just how much damage the underbrush took.

Where he fell was kind of lucky on his part. He was spinning so fast he couldn't aim or control his direction at all. Less than 100 ft from where he fell was a solid concrete airfield (where he would have been dead on impact) and in the other direction was water (where he would have been knocked unconscious and drowned).

Of course this "luck" only followed the severe unluck immediately preceding it. The reason for the parachute failure, he says, was "the cords seemed to be catching on part of the parachute container on my back, which is a one-in-a-million chance."

[Monty9]

From an old movie....can't remember it's name....

" He hit the ground so hard it would've brought up dust on a rainy day"

always liked that line.....

[Irisheyes]

From what height is it possible to hit water and survive?

[Pokernub]

terminal velocity is about 120 mph, prolly take about 4/5 seconds to reach it. i would say about 70/80 meters before you break your neck?

[swiggidy]

Jonathon: Are you ok?
Michael: No
Jonathon: Does anything hurt?
Michael: Yes

[Toe]

Jonathon: Are you ok?
Michael: No
Jonathon: Does anything hurt?
Michael: Yes

Comedy

[givememyleg]

video won't play

[givememyleg]

wouldn't play in firefox for some reason, but damn that's nuts.

just imagine the feeling of looking down while it's happening... gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

[UG]

BOONDOCK SAINT CHEATS DEATH AGAIN!

[swiggidy]

wouldn't play in firefox for some reason, but damn that's nuts.

You have 2.0? You have to download it (not automatic). It worked fine for me.

[thenonsequitur]

I have Firefox 2, and it didn't work for me either. I thought it had to do with my particular plugin configuration though (I have a lot of plugins that affect embedded objects and media).

[thenonsequitur]

just imagine the feeling of looking down while it's happening... gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

From the interview (this went through his mind after he went through all possible options of how he might save himself):

So at that point I thought, well, I've got my camera and I'll wave goodbye. There's nothing left for me to do...

Then, the nearer I got to the ground, the more everything seemed to speed up. You see the ground rushing up and it's just a matter of waiting for impact.

I tried to think of something, the right thing to say for the camera. But I looked at the ground again and without thinking I just blurted out, "Oh shit, I'm dead...Bye!!!!"

[AHiltz]

From what height is it possible to hit water and survive?

Not a whole lot. Mythbusters had a show where they dropped Buster from a few hundred and it would have been fatal.

[boost]

shit like that will give you a whole knew outlook on life..

[UG]

shit like that will give you a whole knew outlook on life..

like what don't ever fucking skydive?

[boost]

nah, I mean like the lil stupid shit just wont really bug you anymore I dont think. Im trying to get to that point right now without any crazy shit like this. When people do things that bug me, instead of getting angry I just try to process the events that took place. Why do I think they behaved the way the ydid? Did I do something to cause this? What is the most effective way to deal wit the situation? Does it even need to be "dealt with?"

[lolzzz_321]

BOONDOCK SAINT CHEATS DEATH AGAIN!

[BoondockSaint]

BOONDOCK SAINT CHEATS DEATH AGAIN!

LOL. Luckily I hit at about half that speed. Though oddly enough this guy had less injuries. And terminal is like closer to 8-9 seconds than 4 or 5. If you don't hit the water with good form from any higher than 15 meters you are gonna messed up and anything higher than, id say about 150 feet, no matter how you hit, your probably gonna die. Of course people suicide jump off the golden gate and occassionally live and thats higher but those are extreme cases probably hitting a breaking wave or something. If this guy would have hit the water he probably would have died on impact. I think hitting relatively calm water at anything over 60-70 (basically straight down) or around there is like hitting concrete on the body. It would probably split your guts open and break a lot of things. I flew off a jet ski once at 50 and skipped across the water for a long time before i sunk in lol. Angle is different though. You could probably fly off a jet ski at 100 and live since u just slide across the top.

[BoondockSaint]

"The Golden Gate Bridge is said to be the most popular suicide location in the world--at least 1,200 people had jumped as of 2003, of whom fewer than 20 survived. A more typical outcome was that of a stuntman calling himself Kid Courage, who jumped off the bridge in 1980 trying to set a free-fall record. He landed flat on his back and was dead when pulled from the water with massive internal injuries."

[BoondockSaint]

Beyond a certain point even Olympic form won't save you. One expert claims the upper limit for surviving water entry is around 80 mph. Presumably it's less if you're hitting something solid. Still, the literature teems with spectacular exceptions:

* In a 1942 paper, physiologist Hugh De Haven told of eight people who survived falls of 50 to 150 feet on dry land, many with only minor injuries. The common denominator: something to break the fall or soften the impact, such as loose dirt, the hood of a car, or, in one astonishing but verified case, an iron bar, metal screens, a skylight, and a metal-lath ceiling.

* In 1963, U.S. Marine pilot Cliff Judkins's chute didn't open after he bailed out of his crippled fighter. He fell 15,000 feet into the Pacific, suffered numerous broken bones and a collapsed lung, but lived.

* U.S. Army air force sergeant Alan Magee fell 20,000 feet from an exploding B-17 in 1943 and crashed through the skylight of a French train station. (A lesson emerges: Aim for the skylight.) Though his arm was shattered, he lived too.

* When his bomber was shot down in 1942, Soviet lieutenant I.M. Chisov fell 22,000 feet into a snowy ravine. He was badly injured but recovered.

* Luckiest of all was RAF flight sergeant Nicholas Alkemade, who leaped from his burning bomber in 1944 without a parachute at 18,000 feet. After a 90-second plunge, he crashed through tree branches in a pine forest and landed in 18 inches of snow. His only injuries: scratches, bruises, burns, and, in some accounts, a twisted knee.

[Ash256]

Just watching that gave me a headache.

Seriously.

[boost]

hahah boons stories about people falling from ridiculous heights are great, esp the last one, he fuckin walked away from a 18,000 foot fall..

[swiggidy]

I know a diver who just messed up a jump from the 10m platform and did a belly flop. She has 2 broken ribs and a partially collapsed lung.

[givememyleg]

wow @ boon

incredible

[euphoricism]

Didnt that movie "the guardian" say something like hitting the water from 90 feet was fatal?

[sinky]

I know nothing about skydiving, can someone explain to me how his buddy landed only a few seconds later. How fast can you drop with a "good" chute ?

[BoondockSaint]

I know nothing about skydiving, can someone explain to me how his buddy landed only a few seconds later. How fast can you drop with a "good" chute ?

U can drop just as fast if not a little faster when you are trying to. You just pull a front corner of the canopy down and its a nice controlled dive towards the ground. Then you just come out of it at the last second and your canopy planes out and you land. This guy obviously couldnt do that cause his lines were tangled but if it would have untangled a couple hundred feet from impact he would have had a chance of landing it fine.

[Toe]

the second guy has awesome tekken to just swoop in n land right next to him, how hard is it to do that?

[biondino]

Boon left out the biggest fall of all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87

[BoondockSaint]

Boon left out the biggest fall of all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovi%C4%87

Wow thats insane. I had never heard of that one before.

[BoondockSaint]

the second guy has awesome tekken to just swoop in n land right next to him, how hard is it to do that?

Not that hard. By the time I had 20 jumps I could land in a pea gravel pit thats maybe 10x10 everytime. It was a bigger canopy and I couldnt swoop in 100 mph though it was a slower landing, but wouldnt really get you there that much slower. Maybe 20 seconds.

[Aces]

nah, I mean like the lil stupid shit just wont really bug you anymore I dont think. Im trying to get to that point right now without any crazy shit like this. When people do things that bug me, instead of getting angry I just try to process the events that took place. Why do I think they behaved the way the ydid? Did I do something to cause this? What is the most effective way to deal wit the situation? Does it even need to be "dealt with?"

A good book and easy read on this topic is Don't Sweat the Small Stuff...and it's all small stuff by Richard Carlson