RIP Vesna Vulović, survived 44 years after 33,000-foot fall

I think surviving that kind of fall involves getting a decent spiral going, because if you can’t due to your starting height being too short, maybe you just splat?

No I think its just v^2 = 2ax where you want to maximise x to minimise a, with v being a known value around 200km/h. Preferably with some structure around you like part of an aircraft, to absorb all the knocking around at impact.

Well, she’s technically correct. It’s not the falling that will kill you…

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So far, so good!

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Its only the last half inch that hurts.

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As long as you keep halving the distance to the ground, you’ll never hit it.

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Obligatory:

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can’t go much faster then terminal velocity right?

i heard when i was younger that your odds of surviving a high free fall dramatically increased if you were unconscious. I’m not sure this is true, but this was common kid wisdom when i was a kid.

She survived gravity but 2016 was too much to endure.

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Going on the kid wisdom I was subjected to, I wouldn’t trust that info in the least. However, I’ve heard of better survivability in vehicle crashes due to driver/passengers being unconscious. They don’t stress as the car goes into/over/under/whatever, and so they receive less damage.

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I suspect that unconsciousness is why we don’t have any amazing free-fall survival stories from people that landed in water. Water is certainly softer than dirt, but at those speeds you are at best going to be seriously injured and unconscious after you hit. And being unconscious in water after any possible life preserver has been torn off of you is NOT a recipe for survival.

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Next day: “Man’s body found impaled on evergreen tree”

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It seems like the kind of experience you’d prefer not to remember, though.

This survival story is amazing - I can barely get out of bed when I have the flu. I can’t even imaging recovering from all that trauma and going back to work as a flight attendant :-0

But, as impressive as her survival is, falling wasn’t a choice. It was, though, for the the guy who jumped out of a plane without a chute into a net, from 25,000 feet :scream:

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/07/30/488083554/luke-aikins-becomes-first-person-to-jump-from-a-plane-without-a-parachute

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good point.

also water is like rock at those speeds, nothing to decelerate the impact like branches or snow.

I’d look around for a trampoline in someone’s back yard and try and hit that… :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye: that has to work right?

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https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-jump-off-a-plane-without-a-parachute-and-survive-by-landing-on-a-trampoline

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bouncy castle? plastic ball pit? yoga ball? packing peanuts? :sunglasses:

…i’m starting to think that surviving falling from a plane is not fun.

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I’m gonna say no to the bouncy house…

http://www.google.com/search?q=bouncy+house+death

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