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[Ripclawe]

thru a corrugated iron roof....

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/ma...4.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/11/14/ixportal.html

An Army officer survived falling 3,500 feet from an aircraft after his parachute failed to open properly during a training exercise.

Lieut Charlie Williams, a platoon commander in the Irish Guards, escaped serious injury when he crashed through the corrugated iron roof of a house in a shanty town in eastern Kenya.



The maximum speed he would have achieved during his descent, if his parachute had failed to deploy at all, would have been 120mph, although the actual speed of his impact is unknown.

The 25-year-old officer, who was making only his third parachute jump, cracked three vertebrae in the lower part of his back and dislocated a finger, when his fall was broken by the roof.

As Lieut Williams fell, his instructors looked on in the belief that he would be killed. They aborted the other jumps, banked the aircraft steeply and followed his path down to earth.

"The next thing I knew, was that I had smashed through the corrugated iron roof of somebody's home and I was lying on the ground with a crowd of puzzled Kenyans looking at me. My immediate thought was 'Oh my God, I'm alive'.

 

[Koshiro]

Holy.. I have a new hero.

 

[Miguel]

Kenya believe it?!

"Hey son, did you close the windows? It's starting to rain ag*THUD*"

 

[Phoenix]

While he was parachuting, the chute was fortunately slowing him down. Thankfully it was only 3500ft.

Now the biggest question is whether or not he can do anything other than fart on command at this point.

 

[speedpop]

There was another one similar to this except both her parachutes completely failed and she landed in a swamp. I can't remember the full details other than the vision of a woman falling helplessly from the sky and landing with a big hybrid noise of squish and thud.

 

[belgurdo]

 

[theo]

 

[Agent Dormer]

Kenya - it's better than Norway.

 

[tt_deeb]

Does this break the world record? I think the record of highest fall survived is 33,333 prior to this.

 

[firex]

A month or so back there was a woman from south africa who also survived a skydiving attempt like this, but her method of surviving was pretty funny: she wound up bouncing off power lines and hitting the ground, and only suffered a broken tailbone.

 

[Beezy]

Does this break the world record? I think the record of highest fall survived is 33,333 prior to this.

33,333 what? Inches?

 

[Crispy]

A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "Adventure training is meant to have an element of risk built into it so the activity is challenging an exciting, but this was a bit excessive."

:lol :lol

Events like this really kind of amaze me. So many people kill themselves by falling off the fifth floor of a building or something, yet this man survives a fall of thousands of feet. Simply awesome.

 

[Phoenix]

Does this break the world record? I think the record of highest fall survived is 33,333 prior to this.

Er, 33,333 > 3500.

 

[pestul]

I think he was refering to this case:

Highest Fall Survived Without A Parachute
Vesna Vulovic, a flight attendant from Yugoslavia, survived a fall
from 10,160 m (33,330 ft) when the DC-9 airplane she was traveling in
blew up over Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic), on January 26, 1972.
A terrorist bomb was thought to be the cause, and no other passengers
survived. Vesna broke both legs and was temporarily paralyzed from the
waist down.

She says, "I was so lucky to have survived! I hit the earth, not the
trees, not the snow, but the frozen ground." Strangely, the first
words she uttered, "Can I have a cigarette," were in English!

minus the obvious effect the shrooms were having on him...

 

[BigGreenMat]

The actual height of the fall in this case is irrelevant. He would accelerate to his maximum fall speed LONG before he would hit the ground. If his chute wasn't open it might have slowed him to maybe 80 or 90 mph, but still quite fast. The key was the metal roof which probably slowed him to under 50 mph and giving him the chance to survive. I don't know about the ground, but whatever padding it might provide might have helped as well.

 

[Shinobi]

Kenya - it's better than Norway.

 

[GONZO]

I've jumped twice already, let me tell you the fact that anyone can survive is incredible. I jumped from 13,000 and 10,000 ft. Both times I was scared off of my ass. The second time they were hanging me out of the damn plane for about 30 seconds while the pilot was searching for the proper wind line. If you ever have a hankering for an adreneline rush i would suggest you go sky-diving, simply awesome.

 

[Phoenix]

I've jumped twice already, let me tell you the fact that anyone can survive is incredible. I jumped from 13,000 and 10,000 ft. Both times I was scared off of my ass. The second time they were hanging me out of the damn plane for about 30 seconds while the pilot was searching for the proper wind line. If you ever have a hankering for an adreneline rush i would suggest you go sky-diving, simply awesome.

I had a roommate when I was working for Microsoft try to convince me that I should do it and I told him he was out of his freaking mind, but I wasn't - so no thanks

 

[Jim Bowie]

So, how come skydivers don't fall into large bodies of water? Wouldn't the water break the fall? I mean, sure, you'd have to close your legs really tight, to avoid your balls being ripped off and water impaling your anus, but other than that...

 

[tt_deeb]

Er, 33,333 > 3500.

Oh shit...

 

[Escape Goat]

:lol Graphic showing his journey is great

 

[DarthWoo]

So, how come skydivers don't fall into large bodies of water? Wouldn't the water break the fall? I mean, sure, you'd have to close your legs really tight, to avoid your balls being ripped off and water impaling your anus, but other than that...

Even water can still be deadly if you're falling at terminal velocity. You can break your neck if you go diving ahead into the ocean at the wrong moment and at the wrong angle, like when a powerful wave is heading ashore right as you hit it. Think of how much a belly flop can sometimes hurt, and that's just from maybe 5 feet. I do wonder if someone would survive if they managed to hit the water from skydiving height in that position that professional divers usually use to produce as little splash as possible.

 

[Ripclawe]

So, how come skydivers don't fall into large bodies of water? Wouldn't the water break the fall? I mean, sure, you'd have to close your legs really tight, to avoid your balls being ripped off and water impaling your anus, but other than that...

Hitting a body of water at 120 mph is like hitting concrete.

 

[Escape Goat]

What if something hit the water seconds before you did?

 

[DarthWoo]

What if something hit the water seconds before you did?

Then you'd probably break your head open on whatever hit the water just before you did.

 

[tt_deeb]

Then you'd probably break your head open on whatever hit the water just before you did.

What if it's a trampoline?

 

[Ripclawe]

What if something hit the water seconds before you did?

BUSTED!!! doesn't work.

 

[FoneBone]

Kenya - it's better than Norway.

More like Snoreway!

 

[tt_deeb]

What's the maximum speed a human can reach falling?

 

[DarthWoo]

What if it's a trampoline?

Murphy's Law would probably have you hit the rigid border part of the trampoline that reckless kids tend to break things on when they're just playing regularly on the things.

 

[Jim Bowie]

Okay, okay, water's out, but what if you fell in a shitload of fluffy white cotton? That has to protect you.

EDIT:

Murphy's Law would probably have you hit the rigid border part of the trampoline that reckless kids tend to break things on when they're just playing regularly on the things.

Almost every kid in my neighborhood broke a leg doing that :lol

 

[Gek54]

Hitting a body of water at 120 mph is like hitting concrete.

Yeah um ....no.

 

[Phoenix]

What's the maximum speed a human can reach falling?

Maximum falling speed == terminal velocity.

Three Facts about Falling Freely

Terminal Velocity(m/s)

"For a skydiver with parachute closed, the terminal velocity is about 200 km/h."
56 m/s

"The more compact and dense the object, the higher its terminal velocity will be. Typical examples are the following: raindrop, 25 ft/s, human being, 250 ft/s."
76 m/s

"The terminal velocity of a falling human being with arms and legs outstretched is about 120 miles per hour (192 km per hour) - slower than a lead balloon, but a good deal faster than a feather!"
53 m/s