11-01-2009, 10:30 AM
Hi all
I had a drunken disagreement with one of my flat mates last night. (Well I was drunk and he was sober.) We were discussing the proper way to adjust your body should you happen to fall into the ocean from, say, an airplane. Let's say that parachute never opened!
He said it was impossible to survive any way, rendering the discussion pointless. My argument was that I had heard of people surviving those kinds of falls. Sure, they broke a good deal of bones in their body, but they survived the impact with water. In response, he then said that you should probably land with your legs first, shaping your body into a nail landing feet-first into water. I was pretty adamant that doing so would push your legs all the way up to your shoulders, thus crushing your entire body. I believe that in order to survive an impact like that, you need to break the water surface with your hands first as divers do, thus reducing the level of impact on the rest of your body. Your hands and arms will most likely break, but the damage to your head and the rest of the body is survivable.
What do you think, fellow lurkers?
I had a drunken disagreement with one of my flat mates last night. (Well I was drunk and he was sober.) We were discussing the proper way to adjust your body should you happen to fall into the ocean from, say, an airplane. Let's say that parachute never opened!
He said it was impossible to survive any way, rendering the discussion pointless. My argument was that I had heard of people surviving those kinds of falls. Sure, they broke a good deal of bones in their body, but they survived the impact with water. In response, he then said that you should probably land with your legs first, shaping your body into a nail landing feet-first into water. I was pretty adamant that doing so would push your legs all the way up to your shoulders, thus crushing your entire body. I believe that in order to survive an impact like that, you need to break the water surface with your hands first as divers do, thus reducing the level of impact on the rest of your body. Your hands and arms will most likely break, but the damage to your head and the rest of the body is survivable.
What do you think, fellow lurkers?
