There was a discussion here a while back about the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, and a link to an article that featured (among others) the story of a man who jumped and survived. He was extremely depressed, but said he realized during the fall something to the effect of that he could handle/fix everything in his life except for what he’d just done. He came out of it disabled, and IIRC works to help educate others who might be planning on doing the same thing.
Great Falls Copier Toner, to be precise. <insert rimshot here>
If only I were kidding.
I think statistically dentists have the highest rate of suicide. At least this is what I’ve heard.
Hey, at least its not ads for the Season Opener of “Medium” on NBC. The one where Allison Dubois tries to unravel the death of a man who has fallen from a tall building in Phoenix… :dubious:
Maybe because they’re always down in the mouth?
My brother fell (head first) 47’ off a building he was hanging steel on a few years ago. He lived, and was conscious the whole fall – still conscious and awake enough to give the paramedics contact information for me and my dad (his adopted father) before they got him sedated. FWIW, he shattered both arms trying to protect his head – almost no damage to his head, though, if you can imagine – well, I mean, there was damage, but it was still mostly intact is what I mean. He lived.
Or “So far, so good.”
I’m embarrassed to admit that I am having an IMPOSSIBLE time posting a link tonight (could have something to do with the alcoholic beverage I’m drinking), but if anyone wants to read about a truly astonishing case of survival following a fall, check out this:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/01/04/2008-01-04_window_washer_who_fell_47_floors_likely_.html
Or Google the words (not in quotes, of course) “window washer survive fall New York”.
(Sorry I’m impaired. I shall go forth in peace resolved not to drink and post again!)
Kevin Hines. I caught his story on The Bridge, and he’s a truly remarkable person.
Quick hijack, but I was on the pre-med track for a while myself (One of the bigger mistakes in my life, and believe me, that’s saying something!). It wouldn’t surprise me one bit if it were true.
Is that because they are always looking down in the mouth? ( collective groan 
)
Bah!!! You beat me to it! 
p.s. I thought The Bridge was a wonderfully thought-provoking film, **Linty Fresh **.
Or “I can see my house from up here!”.
Handbasket Airlines, window seat please.
No.
Otherwise no one would be able to skydive more than once.
Also, folks who have survived extreme falls without a parachute have also reported remaining conscious all the way down.
I’ve always wondered how horrific it would be to jump, then change your mind. The 8 seconds or so would feel like a really long time to be thinking “I don’t want to die!!!”
There was a lawyer here in Toronto, circa 1994, who was being a putz during a firm reception to welcome the new articling students. While alcohol was being served, all witnesses say he was sober, but he decided to show the new articling students how strong the floor to ceiling windows of their sky scraper were. (He had done this same demonstration on several other occasions.) So he ran down the hall and jumped up to bounce off the glass.
You guessed it, this time the window shattered and he plummeted 24 stories to his demise.
ETA: Hey, he’s got a Wikipedia entry.. I was close in was 1993 not 1994.
The number I’ve always heard is that a fall from 3 stories has a 50 percent chance of death.
The only case I know about where someone passed out on the way down was Lt. Chisov, a Russian airman in World War II. He got shot out of his bomber at 20,000+ feet. There was a battle still going on all around him, and he figured if he opened his chute right there he would just be an easy target. What he planned to do was drop down below the battle and then open his chute. What he ended up doing was passing out on the way down, and woke up when he hit the ground. He hit the edge of a snow covered ravine and rolled to the bottom. He was very badly injured, but survived.
Not to me. Off the top of my head I would nominate drowning, but could probably think of worse.
Just a thought, but I would imagine passing out on the way down would actually be more conducive to living through it. By the same token that being drunk helps you survive bad wrecks – you don’t tense up, so your body absorbs the impact better.
The thing that scared me the most on 9/11 was the idea that people would jump from the World Trade Towers rather than die of fire.
If you had told any of them that morning that they would die that way, they would have thought you were totally looney.
Actually, the window did it’s job and didn’t break. It was the frame holding in the window that gave way, causing the whole thing to pop out in one piece.
ETA: although now that I search for a cite I can’t find one, so maybe you’re right.
Anyway, there was a jumper at my wife’s apartment building the first day we met. As I went up to her place I was wondering why there were so many police around the building, but realized what had happened when I saw one of them lowering a tape measure from an upper floor. Apparently, the guy (who died) didn’t live in the building, it was just the only conveniently tall (13 floors) building in the area at the time.
Yeah. The fire in the car thing. That beats drowning right there in terms of overall terror.
Also-- Mighty_Girl – I once handled an PR consulting account with Handbasket Airlines. I don’t mean to brag but, I was the guy who suggested changing the name to ‘Handbasket’ when it became clear that the airline’s original name-- Hell Direct was not popular with passengers.
One thing I hate when I have to fly Handbasket is that they only have one hub airport and it is waaaaaaay up in the 3rd circle and takes just fucking forever to get downtown.