There’s a quote that “one couple held hands on the way down.” That implies there were physically conscious.
Whenever I think of the events of that day, the idea that some people chose to die from jumping rather than face the inferno that the WTC had become always hits me the hardest.
Maybe the BF and I are just freaks, but we got into a wreck a year and a half ago or so, where we flipped his Blazer in the median on the interstate and hit the tail end of a semi in the oncoming lane. All he remembers is hitting the grass, and all I remember was seeing the semi and yelling. We both came to when the ambulance guys were getting us out of the car.
I had always heard that blacking out as a response to extreme physical stress was common.
A rather ghoulish point, but the jumpers didn’t do swan dives either. They went feet first which would at least to me point out that somewhere in the reptile brain they actually expected to survive jumping. That survival instinct is a hard one to shake. They were most likely awake the whole way down.
What a thought to start the morning with. 
Bergen Evans, the Proto-Cecil, covered this in one of his books. He cited evidence that people falling great distances (with parachutes) remained alive and conscious. The belief or hope that they pass out or die before they hit seems to be wishful thinking on the part of the considerers.
Did you have concussions? Because you may not have lost consciousness–just your memory. I flipped over the handlebars of my dirtbike when I was a kid, and walked halfway home, talking to my friends the whole time (bloody and with a mouthful of dirt), before I “came to.” I don’t remember anything between the takeoff and walking home. But I WAS conscious during that time.
Isn’t that a bit different? Forgive me if I’m wrong - I’m no expert - but isn’t the theory that short term memory is stored electrically in the brain, and long term memory is stored chemically? Kinda RAM and C drive, if you will. You remember your first kiss because your brain decided it was important enough to commit to long term, chemical memory, but you don’t generally remember your 837th kiss? This is apparently why trauma victims not only have memory loss relating to the period immediately after the accident, but also often to the few minutes before?
I don’t think this would apply to WTC jumpers. for them, there is no “after” and the temporary “now” would be real enough.
Not sure if you’re still being serious, but do you think that during the few seconds of sensory overload that **mhendo **describes includes the thought, “Whew, it sure is a good thing I’m wearing my parachute!” A person jumping out of a building for the first time (as opposed to a BASE jumper, for example) is going to experience the same overload, regardless of their parachute wielding state.
I rather suspect a heart attack is considerably more painful (and protracted) than going SPLAT on a concrete sidewalk at terminal velocity, appearances to the contrary. When your head slams into an unyeilding material like concrete at 120 MPH, it’s a near-certaintly you’re unconscious–and dead a fraction of a second later–before you’re even aware of the pain.
I’m guessing that the people that jumped wouldn’t have remembered the fall if they had survived.
My dad crashed an airplane. He stalled it about 65’ above the ground. He remembers the plane shuddering (which happens right before a stall) then he remembers nothing for the next two days until he woke up in the hospital. This might be a case of head trauma that caused him to lose a couple of days though. Or, it could be that they kept him doped up for pain that whole time as well.
OTOH, I don’t remember the first time I bungee jumped. I remember standing on the platform, and I remember hanging upside down by the cord. But I’m pretty sure my brain went into “OH SHIT WE’RE GONNA DIE!” mode and shut down for everything in between. I do remember all subsequent bungee jumps in their entirety, so my brain must have realized that it was survivable and enjoyed the ride.
RE: fainting goats. They don’t faint - all their muscles tense when they get startled. If they are moving when this happens, they fall over. If they aren’t moving, they usually just freeze.
I read a story about a man named George who was burned over most of his body in a gasoline tank fire. He said that there was some pain at the beginning, but he soon realized that he was going to die and the pain went away (he didn’t die, of course). The brain can filter out stimuli and ignore them. That’s how we tune out all the background noise when we’re concentrating on something, and it’s how George sat down and gave up while he was being burned alive. I imagine the 9/11 jumpers may have experienced something similar - the relief of knowing that you’re not going to suffer a slow, painful death may be enough to override the terror of jumping off a building. Something gave them the strength to make that leap, after all. Jumping to their deaths was obviously less stressful than what they were experiencing inside the buildings. The relief of escaping the horror may have flooded out the realization of what they had just committed themselves to.
I saw one guy who was in the standard skydiver position all the way down. Face down, knees & arms bent so he formed an inverted arch. What incredible balls.
Not always. This is a photo of a guy going down head first.
If you had told any of those jumpers that they would die like that, they would have laughed in your face. The police were very frightened that a jumper would land on people running from the building, which would have been instant death for the both of them. It didn’t happen, fortunately.
Hell of a terrorist attack that one.
Google didn’t turn anything up, but I was sure that there was a chaplain or higher ranking officer in the fire department hit by a falling body and killed.
The Esquire article about the picture linked by Annie-Xmas states it was a fireman.
I am. It just seemed odd to get an answer specific to skydivers when I asked a question that was specifically about not having a parachute.
Not at a conscious level like that, probably.
I’m not sure how we can tell. I think it’s reasonable to imagine that knowing in advance you have a device that should ensure your safe descent might buffer you a bit against either the severity or duration of the initial sensory rush.
NYFD Chaplain Mychal Judge is probably who you are thinking of. According to Wikipedia, he was killed inside the North Tower lobby by debris from the collapsed South Tower. He was the first officially recorded victim of the attack.
Read the esquire article.
Wow. That was a tough read. I want to see the documentary now, but I’m wondering if the subject matter brought any of you down.
The impact and resulting jerk and deceleration, even if one hits feet first, will certainly result in concussion and unconsciousness. Flattening out into an arch to minimize descent speed might allow one to add a couple of seconds, but this would be difficult for anyone who was not already experienced in skydiving.
With regard to comparisons between skydiving and jumping out of a building, the psychological impact of wearing a parachute is negligible; as described by Santo Rugger and mhendo, the sensory and stimulation overload prevents any rational thought from occurring; it is not unusual that a novice parachutist forgets that he has a parachute on, which is why one or two jumpmasters jump along with the student on the first few jumps. As for the subconscious effect of wearing a 'chute, the concept of a parachute saving your life is not strongly rooted in the subconscious, at least not for someone who hasn’t already experienced a few dives.
From an empirical standpoint, we have accounts from jumpers who have experienced failed 'chutes and reserves, both dead (but demonstrating consciousness in body control or radio communication) and (a few) survivors. The survivors tend to recount consciousness up to the point of impact, after which they have little or no memory of the actual impact even if they are found in a semi-conscious state. A heart attack or unconsciousness rising therefrom in a nominally healthy person is unlikely, and there is no other physiological reason to anticipate unconsciousness prior to impact.
Stranger
I understand what you’re trying to say, but I don’t think it’s relevant. I lowsided my motorcycle last night, and the last thing that was going through my head while it was happening was that I sure was glad I was wearing my helmet. As soon as I stopped sliding, though, I sure was glad I had my gloves on; they were basically shredded, and I still got a little rash on my palm. Somebody in a car wreck doesn’t think to themselves during the wreck, “I sure am glad I’m wearing my seatbelt!” Sure, they may think so a few seconds afterwards, but it’s not going to make the immediate mental reaction any different. It simply happens too fast.
To add a little to the skydiving discussion:
Yes, for someone new to that environment the first couple of seconds out the door tend to be a bit of a blur, but I’ve never heard of someone passing out or having a heart attack from it.
Experiments have been done with experienced skydivers which showed that their heart rate and breathing peaked sharply right at exit, then fell back to normal resting rates for the balance of the jump until right before pull time, when they climbed sharply again. After deployment they went back down to normal. Basically stress levels climb at the points where trouble can happen (exit and deployment). In my experience this feels right, I would always get wound up until I went out the door, then was usually pretty relaxed and focused on the jump itself, then started to think about saving my life around 4000 feet again until I had a good canopy over my head.
I have had to handle a high speed malfunction before, on my 12th jump, where there was no certainty that I would survive, and while it was pretty damn exciting for several seconds I didn’t lose my wits, black out, have a heart attack or anything else. I did all the right things and walked away from it.
There have been several cases of freefall cameraman going in, some of them lived. I saw the film from one recent incident (where the jumper lived to tell about it) and he never passed out - he actually waved goodbye to his family into his camera lens right before impact and in an interview said that he just figured “Oh boy, this is it” before hitting the trees.
A stuntman named Rod Pack did the infamous “chuteless jump” back in the 1960s, where he left the plane at 14.6k with no parachute whatsoever (he maneuvered to another skydiver in freefall, took a chest-mount reserve and attached it to his harness) and landed safely. No promise that he wouldn’t die and he didn’t have any problems in freefall.
Finally what I’ve read about commercial pilots is that in fatal incidents the cockpit voice recorder often has them on tape, working on the problem and talking it out all the way until impact.
Based on this I imagine that the poor people who jumped from the WTC that day didn’t pass out from fear; they probably were in a blur for the first couple of seconds and knew what was coming in the last couple of seconds, although they might have been so hopped up on adrenaline at the last that they weren’t exactly rational.
