Cecil’s latest column (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/050311.html ) addresses a question that was answered by Bergen Evans, the Proto-Cecil, in his book A Natural History of Nonsense. Evans wrote abnout the popular misconception that people falling from a great height were often said to be dead before they hit, “killed in some mysterious way by the speed of their fall”. He suggests it may have been in part due to a need to reassure the listener that the fallee hadn’t suffered (“He Never Felt a Thing! He was dead long before he hit the ground!”). He produces evidence that this certainly isn’t the case, in particular citing the case of a man who fell from a building and shouted “Below – bwelow – below” all the way down, presumably to warn people out of the way. He also cited a few cases of people who’d fallen and survived.
As for people jumping from bridges and the like, it seems to have been a preoccupation in the old Batman comics and strips. I recall one issue where Batman demonstrates to a would-be jumper everything that can go wrong. In another, Batman and Robin demonstrate how to successfully jump from a great height – They tie large rocks to their legs. This, they said, kept them vertical and broke the surface of the water when they hit. (Underwater, they cut the ropes before swimming to the surface). They claimed that movie stuntmen used a similar technique, with a self-releasing strap on it. I’ve never heard of such a decvice elsewhere.
I’d be interested in a column about people who died after falling from very small distances.
Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Atilla the Hun, Cleopatra, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill, Confuscius, and Mahatma Gandhi all died after falling very small distances.
Yeah but those folks didn’t die FROM falling a short distance. They were already dead when they fell down (or croaked shortly thereafter).
There was a case here in San Francisco a few years ago where two guys got in a fight. One knocked the other down, the victim struck his head on the sidewalk and died. I’ll dig around for a cite if you’d like.
Interestingly enough one of the guys I knew at a dropzone back in the midwest survived a high-velocity impact when a stunt failed and he hit the hood of a car in a parking lot at an estimated 80mph with a streamered canopy over his head. He was pretty badly hurt but lived to jump again. One of my old skydiving buddies bought the used gear from the lucky survivor, we used to call it the “Racer Death Rig”.
Years ago I read a Usenet thread about an extreme sport that consisted of jumping from large heights into the water. I can’t seem to find it now, but the posts had instructions for how to minimize the damage. The advice I can remember was to remain as vertical a possible, falling feet first. The legs should be crossed at the ankles (to avoid water hitting the groin at high speed), and the feet should be pointed down make a pointed entry. The other big danger was getted hit in the chin with a wall of water, which could whip the head back. To project against that, the arms were held close to the body, with the hands covering the face (with wrists at about face level, NOT under the chin). This way the forearms would present a smooth cross-section to the water, without a jutting chin sticking out.
I dimly remember heights of 60 feet being done, with 80 feet being the edge of what they were doing. There was some discussion that ideally you’d stay horizontal while falling to maximize drag, then switching to vertical at the last second, but everyone thought that was too dangerous to try, unless you were falling from hundreds or thousands of feet.
I did find this how-to page, while looking for the original one:
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1089535
Arjuna34
As unusual as it must be to survive falling from a great height, I was once introduced by my father-in-law to a gentleman who’d been a tail gunner in a bomber during WWII, and whose parachute failed when his plane was shot down. He survived similarly to the story recounted by falling through tree branches and into snow. While injured, his injuries were relatively minor and he survived.
More bizarre to me was the fact that this fortunate fellow’s brother was in the infantry and was run over by a tank. The brother survived thanks to the muddy condition of the ground. In the amazement of the moment I failed to inquire whether the tank that ran over the soldier’s abdomen was allied or German. The combination of short odds on surviving either of those catastrophes within the same family must be very rare indeed.
The concept of falling from such a height terrifies me. It terrfies me so much that I actually felt dizzy, almost like Jimmy Stewart in “Vertigo”-dizzy.
I think this may have something to do with the fact that I was terrified the one time I tried walking across the Golden Gate Bridge. That was a long way down when I looked.
No, that’s not what I meant. I meant that, at some time in his life (say, maybe sometime in 60 BC), Caesar rolled over in his sleep and fell out of bed. Then, after falling that short distance (specifically, 17 years after), he died of a dagger overdose. Likewise with the others. If one was already dead when one fell down, one wouldn’t have died after falling.
I have a small amount of experience as a skydiver, about 50-60 jumps some years back. As I recall it is very difficult to orient yourself vertically while falling; if I remember right the feeling is akin to standing on a beachball (except at 110 mph). Even trying to extend one leg downward can be difficult; you sort of almost get there and then go into a tumble. I’m surprised to hear that the one golden gate survivor was able to manage it.
You’ve awakened a painful memory; I took a fall once off of a jetski at a pretty high rate of speed & hit the water somewhat feet first but on my side, ankles decidedly NOT crossed. Let’s say the impact affected me in a deep and personal way. Thank goodness I had on a life vest; it’s hard to swim while in a fetal position 
That’s interesting - it must be a “metastable” state, where a slight perturbation will disrupt it (of which there are probably many at terminal velocity!) I think the recreational free-fallers I read about didn’t reach speeds as high as a sky diver; most were from 60 feet or below. In fact, I remember there was quite a bit of debate about how fast they actually did go, which devolved into discussions about the definition of terminal velocity as a function of body position in the air, etc., etc. in typical Usenet fashion I got the impression that none of them were actual sky divers, so they couldn’t compare it to that.
Arjuna34
PS - ouch!
There are also times when falls from heights of 60 to 80 feet have caused problems. In 1982, I was in Japan and found myself jumping off of the cliffs of Manza-mo. I jumped in feet first (wearing sneakers because of the sharp coral). One of the guys that was with us jumped and went in virtually perpendicular to the water causing the water to rush back in from the void he made to hit him on the head knocking him silly. We had to carry him back up the face of the cliff. He was in the hospital for 3 days until he came back to normal.