I recall seeing in some older movies (right offhand I can’t remember the titles), where a person would fall off a tall building, and after hitting the ground there’d only be a little blood around the body. Wouldn’t the effects be much more horrific? Would there be damage to the impact area as well? Could anyone survive such a fall and later be able to lead a normal life?
Movies almost never portray death accurately, particularly violent death. I’ve seen some safety information that said a fall from 14 feet to a hard surface has an almost even chance of being fatal so I don’t think anyone is going to fall off a tall building and be okay.
People have survived falls from extremely high places and hitting the ground extremely fast. In a relaxed spread-eagled position terminal velocity of a person is about 110mph and from a standing start you’d reach that in about 1000 feet of fall, so 10,000 feet or 1,000 feet doesn’t make a big difference.
There was an RAF bomber crewman who fell something like 18,000 feet during WW2, with no parachute (he jumped from his burning bomber), hit trees and a snowbank and survived with only minor injuries. A stewardess survived her jet exploding at around 30,000 feet although she spent many months in the hospital. I used to skydive with a guy who survived a stunt gone wrong that resulted in him hitting a parking lot at about 80mph.
The list goes on. Yes, people can take horrific impacts and live to tell about it, often making full recovery.
As far as what condition the person would be in when they hit the ground it depends on what they hit and how hard…I didn’t see the skydiving accident that I mention above but the guy had a lot of broken bones and he was certainly bleeding but he didn’t look like ground beef. He didn’t leave a crater in the asphalt.
I am not going to debate the question of can people survive such falls from buildings or planes. I will debate the likelyhood of surviving. Hitting the pavement at 110 mph is the same as hitting a bus going 110 mph. A person can survive that kind of impact, but it is not likely.
A friend of mine fell five floors onto grass. He was in hospital quite some time, in traction. Six months later and he got a job on the railways. The job involved a medical which included such things as hopping a certain distance. He didn’t tell them about his accident, and was in agony during parts of the medical, but he passed it. Six months later still, and he says he is completely fine.
Gravity accelerates you by about 10 m/s (22 mph) for every 10 metres of a fall. So from 10 metres, you are effectively being hit by an entire ground at 22 mph - usually fatal. From 20m (a higher floor window), the ground now travels at 44 mph - almost invariably fatal. Greater heights therefore don’t make too much difference, especially since you only need a further 40 or so metres of falling to attain the appropriately named terminal velocity of 120 mph; air friction prevents you accelerating any faster than this.
And, yes, such impacts make a horrific mess: imagine dropping a leather bag full of blood. There are all kinds of macabre websites showing photos from forensic investigations if you’re that interested.
I think it depends how far you fall. My mother saw someone fall from a 3rd story window in China and she says there was “not that much blood”. Of course, there are many possible interpretations of “not that much blood” and she doesn’t like being asked about it.
He was leaning backwards out of a window cleaning the outside if you’re interested. They try to discourage people from doing that but the Chinese are really anal about getting things clean. It was very unfortunate.
Uh, cross out “far”. I think it depends how you fall, which parts you land on and the like.
An interestng site for those interested: http://www.greenharbor.com/fffolder/ffresearch.html
If the impact area is the pavement, then no.
How horrific the scene is depends on how high you fall. A few dozen meters and you might have mostly broken bones and internal injuries. There could be some blood from compound fractures and such.
A few dozen stories and yeah, it would be a big ole mess. Say you land feet first. the impact will then drive your feet and the rest of your legs up into your body. Blood, being a liquid doesn’t compress so hydrostatic pressure would pretty much cause you to explode like a bag of meat.
Minor nitpick SM, it takes about 300m to reach terminal velocity. Velocity increases with the square root of the distance fallen (well in a vacuum anyhow).
Ah, of course you’re right: it’s an increase of 22 mph per second, not per 10 metres (which only applies to the first second), which adds up to far more than 60m for those 6 seconds it takes to reach 120 mph.