Do you have any idea how far an average person can "fall" (assuming they can land on their feet) and avoid serious (i.e. debilitating) injury?

Not really a fair question. Too many variables in the equation. People can break bones from falls that are very short. Then you have situations where people fall from 40 feet and walk away without a scratch. Narrowing it to landing on feet may help.

Consider the question narrowed down to landing on your feet, also assume that this person does not have abnormally bad luck and is otherwise of a sound body.

The situation I'm sure is fictional so it's not something that will be tested on live human beings; however, I think he wants the fiction to have a basis in fact.

I gave him a preliminary answer of 25 feet but told him I'd try to research the topic. My next step is asking a few doctors I know, but I wanted general feedback from climbers as well.

Human are kinda like cats to certain degree.
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And no I didn't personally conduct the research :twisted: !

Great thread. I heard about a fighter pilot who free-fell about 33,000 feet and survived but broke a lot of bones. Was fine when they healed (is this "debilitated"?) Also skydivers have fallen when the chute failed to open up and survived...

Absolutely the exception to the rule! The original poster asked How High can you fall from? Although s/he might have been asking for the average or norm, if and when I ask how fast can a mile be run in, I would expect the fastest time... perhaps then followed by the average time a normal fit person might run it in (for me, about 25 minutes!).

BTW reno I find your posts to be the most logical and useful on the site, by and large. Thanks for the clarification, if it was needed.

Although s/he might have been asking for the average or norm

Human are kinda like cats to certain degree.

A cat thrown out of a 1-2 story window will land without injury/minimal injury...However you throw a cat out of a 3 story window and its almost guarnteed to be injured/killed. A cat thrown out a 4-upwards story window will survive with minimal injury. The cat at 3 stories doesn't have enough time to right itself for the landing. The cat at 4 up stories has time and can absorb the shock by landing on its feet. The reason is that when you have time to prepare for the landing you can make it a lot better.

The concept is sound but I call BS on your numbers. I remember seeing a documentary (on all sorts of animal abilities) and they held cats upside down (by their legs) and dropped from the height of the ceiling and the cat landed feet first. The ceiling may have been higher than 8 feet, but no way it was 3 or 4 stories...

Cats falling from higher up have time to spread their bodies out and achieve terminal velocity at much lower speeds. They then have a much better chance of surviving the fall. At mid-level heights they can't do that and tend to get hurt.

At the cliff(50ft high) about 20 min walk form my dorm room their were 2 drunk guys that fell of about 7 years and walked away from it, but 2 years ago a young kid fell of and died.

Bullshit.

Jay

No Jay, catshit.

Here, read this. Even includes a citation of a published medical journal, should be just your style.

Cats falling from higher up have time to spread their bodies out and achieve terminal velocity at much lower speeds. They then have a much better chance of surviving the fall. At mid-level heights they can't do that and tend to get hurt.

These are the exceptions, not the norm. The minimal chance of survival in such situations is so microscopic as to defy description, and I'd not want to use such events as justification to jump out of a plane without a chute.

As a rule, anything over twice the person's height has a greater than 50% chance of major injury.(American College of Surgeons, Committee on Trauma, Guidelines for Optimal Trauma Care. 1998, revised.)

So... once you get above 12 feet, you have a good chance of serious injury.

In my biostatistics class, this particular study did come up. They analyzed data, I believe from New York, and concluded that mortality rates declined after the fourth floor.

Why were we discussing this particular study in my biostatistics class? We were discussing sampling bias and that these researchers were biased in going to a veterinary clinic and recording these falls.

he suggested jumping out of a 2nd story window instead of staying inside a house with zombies in it

UBC, studying Animal Biology :)

Well, I'm glad to hear that biologists are (finally) studying statistics.

Jay

It sounds like your friend needs to work on his zombie survival skills. No one prepared for an attack would get trapped on the second floor of a zombie infested building...