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wetrocks
Mar 16, 2004, 5:43 PM
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With all the posts about people dieing lately it got me thinking about the odds of surviving a free fall from different heights...no gear slowing you down on your descent. What height do you think the threshold is for dieing from a fall? There's a hell of a lot of luck when falling and other variables like weight, type of ground, the way you land etc etc, but is there a critical height where the probability of you surviving is less than 50%?
I'm taking a wild guess that it's some where between 20 and 25 m. When you fall from 20m you hit the ground going about 75km an hour which is enough force to do in a lot of people...maybe 1/2???. A fall from 45m and your going around 110km/hr, which I'd say you're not likely to survive. Sorry to any physics folks out there if my numbers are off....feel free to post more accurate #'s.
Morbid question I know, but I fell from 10m and walked away...well hobbled away and I was curious if I fell from just a bit higher what my odds were of letting my ghost out.
Is there a height where you'd "be beating the odds" or is surviving a fall mostly just luck?
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emtclimber
Mar 16, 2004, 5:52 PM
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I'm an EMT and had to respond for a guy who fell 4m, He was pronounced brain dead at the hosital after we flew him in. He died 2 days later. So I don't think that you have to fall far you just have to land right.
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the_antoon
Mar 16, 2004, 6:01 PM
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There was a guy who fell out of the nose of a B-24 at 22,000 feet after it was hit by a shell (WWII). He didn't have a chute and fell all the way to the ground. After falling through a fur tree and landing in a snowbank, he got up and walked away.
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crotch
Mar 16, 2004, 6:02 PM
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It Depends (tm)
I once read that the LD50 for an unexpected fall off of a ladder onto concrete was 12 ft. That's 4m for you backwards types.
I also once read that horny college girls were waiting to chat with me online, so take it for what it's worth.
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boulder_boy
Mar 16, 2004, 6:03 PM
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the antoon is that seriously actually possible? :shock: :shock:
and plus it doesnt really matter how high you fall from(actually it does) it matters how you hit the ground in my opinion
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dontfall
Mar 16, 2004, 6:05 PM
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I agree with emtclimber. It really dosen't matter how far you fall (in some cases it does but generally speaking), it matters how you land.
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acrophobic
Mar 16, 2004, 6:07 PM
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you can die from a very small fall if you are not wearing a helmet. I think the biggest cause of death is either very long falls (internal bleeding), or people going braindead after a short-medium fall without a helmet.
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pinktricam
Mar 16, 2004, 6:08 PM
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In reply to: I'm an EMT and had to respond for a guy who fell 4m, He was pronounced brain dead at the hosital after we flew him in. He died 2 days later. So I don't think that you have to fall far you just have to land right.
Sounds like a poster child for the pro-helmet lobby...I heard on the news yesterday of a little girl that was ejected from the vehicle in an automobile accident. She went on to fly over the guard rail of the overpass they were on and landed on the pavement 40 ft. below. She survived with a ruptured spleen, punctured lung and fractured orbital (eye-bone)....a miracle if you ask me!
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sharpender
Mar 16, 2004, 6:09 PM
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If memory serves me correctly I believe the death zone described in the era of John Bacher's free soloing was 60'. Once you solo beyond 60' expect nothing less than death if you fall. It may have actually been 40', but as noted in some of the responses here you can die from falling a lesser distance. Pole vaulters have died from coming down wrong only 16' in the air. Hit your head, snap your neck and presto bingo your dead. Have fun climbing.
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andy_reagan
Mar 16, 2004, 6:30 PM
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PLF and hope for the best! :lol:
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pinktricam
Mar 16, 2004, 6:44 PM
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In reply to: ....I once read that the LD50 for an unexpected fall off of a ladder onto concrete was 12 ft. That's 4m for you backwards types....
Guess I was on the fortunate side of this bracket then....a couple of years ago I was installing one of my sculptures (three copper, brass and steel framed palm trees, the tallest being 23ft. in ht.) in the atrium of a condominium. I was at about 18 ft. and just descending the ladder propped up against the 23 footer when an interior weld failed. As the piece, the ladder and myself toppled, I instantly picked out a clear landing spot in the midst of the landscaping boulders below me and leapt for it. Landing on my feet and folding my body like you would if you were landing a parachute jump, I landed and rolled, jumped onto my feet and began brushing myself off...to the watching crowd's amazement, nothing was broken except for my heart as I looked at the crumpled tree I'd have to drag back to my shop to repair and re-install :?
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j_ung
Mar 16, 2004, 6:50 PM
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I once saw a guy fall about 2 meters. He died later in the hospital.
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skiclimb
Mar 16, 2004, 6:53 PM
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As a skier i'm quite comfortable with jumps of 40 to 50 fert with good landings...I used to jump 15 ft to ground no prob..(more careful with my knees these days)...from the accidents I've seen and jumping experience to 60+ feet I'd say 50/50 at about 40 to 50ft on ground.
Lot's of variables...but with dirt and if you say did an experiment with 100 people that's my guess...
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slavetogravity
Mar 16, 2004, 6:56 PM
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Years ago, while in college I was friends with a guy who was in a climbing accident where he fell off the top of a local crag. He wasn't roped in, he wasn't waring a helmet and he fell 30 metres and landed on the broken talus bellow. The doctors said he wouldn't walk again. Last I heard of him he was working as a forest fire fighter in Yukon. Another friend of mine was in a climbing accident where his belayer dropped him from 30 metres. He hit the ground like a tone of bricks, and because there wasn't a rope tied in the end of the rope, the rope shot through his partners belay devise. He continued to fall past his belayed and rolled for about 20 additional metres down a talus slope. He was banged up, like he in a bad bike accident. Amazingly, he was still able to get up and walk 2km back to his car and was driven to the hospital. He didn't have a single broken bone. So given these first had accounts, I'm afraid there isn't a formula for determining the likelihood of death when falling from a certain height.
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coldclimb
Mar 16, 2004, 6:56 PM
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It's all in the landing. I've purposely jumped from twenty feet onto flat grass, pretty much a perfect landing pad, tucked and rolled, and came up without any problems. Then I've also seen people trip and fall and break bones.
I have read somewhere that 50 feet was the line though. Anything above that, and you can consider yourself dead if you fall. Anything below that, there's still a chance of survival. With a subject like this though, these are just way general guidelines.
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iltripp
Mar 16, 2004, 6:58 PM
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In reply to: Landing on my feet and folding my body like you would if you were landing a parachute jump, I landed and rolled, jumped onto my feet and began brushing myself off...
There was a thread here a while back about a guy who took a big fall at a crag (something like 40 meters I think). If I remember right, he was a cop who had military training and had learned how to do parachute jumps. He did the parachute roll as he landed, and it probably saved his life. I think he had a broken ankle or something, but I don't remember.
Anyway, I'd really like to learn how to parachute roll.
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boulderqt
Mar 16, 2004, 7:15 PM
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It really all depends on how you land some people survive really long falls while others like this girl that lived near me died when she fell out of a pinetree. She only fell around 30 ft about the same as a highball and died within 15 min of the emt's arriving. They never even got her stable enough to transport her. This shows that the hight really doesn't make any difference it's mostly based on how you fall and where.
Climb Safe....
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the_antoon
Mar 16, 2004, 7:51 PM
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In reply to: the antoon is that seriously actually possible? :shock: :shock: and plus it doesnt really matter how high you fall from(actually it does) it matters how you hit the ground in my opinion
yea...sure is...the thing is, when skydiving you reach a terminal velocity and don't keep accelerating past it. so if you fall from 2000 feet or 30000 feet it makes no difference. The thing that determines if you live or not is how you land. If you hit the right kind of surface, in the right body position (who knows what that is), you live. If one little detail is not perfect, you die. It's all about luck. There are actually a lot of stories such as this one. A guy's chute doesn't open when skydiving, then when his buds get down expecting a bloody mess, he is sitting in a field looking kind of stunned and wants to go get a beer. And then there are other stories about people stepping off a 6" step, landing on their head and dying. Sorry to say, there is no formula except....don't fall.
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manboy
Mar 16, 2004, 8:12 PM
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i took a 25m (80ft) ground fall in AZ a few years back.... im still alive and well. my medical bill was $30,000 though.... that was the most painfull part... haha.
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micahmcguire
Mar 16, 2004, 9:03 PM
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it all depends on what you hit on the way down, with what part of your body, and how strong you are (less depends on this). If you are an 80 year old with advanced osteoperosis, and you fall from even a couple feet up, you can die due to bleeding associated with broken bones. If you are a perfectly healthy individual and you fall a couple feet, hitting your head on something on the way down, that can be enough to kill you.
On a more useful note, I've heard from lots of great climbers that past 30 feet is the "death zone," but it just depends on so many factors.
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thegreytradster
Mar 16, 2004, 9:32 PM
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here's the link to the parachute roll fall story, (85 ft).
http://www.af.mil/...sp?storyID=123005973
As previously mentioned a lot depends on conditioning and training as well as mostly luck. This guy was an AF Special Ops type and in incredible shape, as well as just damn lucky.
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johnnord
Mar 17, 2004, 1:25 AM
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a related quotation:
"speed doesn't kill, impact does"
_Rufus Wainwright
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keinangst
Mar 17, 2004, 1:37 AM
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It's kinda like "how much water do you need to drown?"
A Navy SEAL could just as well drown in a glass of water. It's all about whether it's your time to go or not--if it's not a climbing death, it will be some other path.
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temporary-wintertime
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Sep 15, 2004, 2:22 PM
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in the early-mid 90's there was a guy over here in the blueys who freesoloed a 100m+ face, , topped out, then overbalanced while he was setting up a rap anchor and fell the whole 100m or more, did some roll landing thing and he broke his back. the medics looked at what he had just fallen off of, and assuming that he was dead (or as good as) did a shody job of moving him with a broken back and it was from this alone that he died- the examinations later determined that he would have lived and possibly walked again if the chopper guys had taken some more care when extracting him. (no its not a BS story, it was a friend of a guy i know/trust)
also what you say about a 'good' flat landing- its good if you're bouldering, but being a snowboarder i can definately attest to 'flat' landings being the very shit kind- the only injury ive ever had in snowboarding was ffrom knee compression from a landing zone being too flat....
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mjroche
Sep 15, 2004, 2:40 PM
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I helped carry a guy out from Seneca Rocks years ago who decked from about 90 feet onto the broken talus on the base. Luckily he was wearing a helmet and landed relatively flat on his legs and back, so although he was way messed up, he survived. So, again, this shows two things -- the consequences of a fall depend on two things -- how you land and whether you're protected your bean.
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