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Presuming you land on your feet?
We were discussing this on another thread but would like to hear from a wider audience. I once fell / jumped from about 20ft on to soft grass, which resulted in a broken ankle, a busted up elbow, and generally knocked about inside which led me to being in a fair bit of pain all over for weeks afterwards. Another poster said his uncle fell from scaffolding from 70ft and survived, which I found astounding!
I'm young and physically fit, but I honestly think if I jumped or fell from much more than 20ft (even landing on my feet) that I would be in deep deep trouble, possibly dead. People seem to think that 20ft isn't that high, but it bloody is when you drop from it.
We were discussing this on another thread but would like to hear from a wider audience. I once fell / jumped from about 20ft on to soft grass, which resulted in a broken ankle, a busted up elbow, and generally knocked about inside which led me to being in a fair bit of pain all over for weeks afterwards. Another poster said his uncle fell from scaffolding from 70ft and survived, which I found astounding!
I'm young and physically fit, but I honestly think if I jumped or fell from much more than 20ft (even landing on my feet) that I would be in deep deep trouble, possibly dead. People seem to think that 20ft isn't that high, but it bloody is when you drop from it.
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Fell twice, once from about 20ft, broken shoulder, fractured skull. Shoulder was the worse as the doc says you can fracture your skull in 1,000 places as long as the brain is OK.
Was working in a lift shaft in the Belfast Shipyard, staging gave way. I feel 3 floors (30 ft?). The lift shaft was filled with staging pins but I avoided all and landed on top of a welder. The machine and staging plank all came down. Not a scratch on either of us. I was that shook up I jumped up more concerned about the welder but as someone said we should have been stretched out. I seen a manager fall from the bottom wrung of a wooden ladder. It cracked as I went down it and I said nothing to him. He broke his foot and damaged ligaments, he was a bastard manager anyway  |
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With my dodgy knee I couldn't or wouldn't want to jump more than 5 feet.
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My 20ft fall was about as perfect a landing as anyone could have hoped for given the circumstances, on to soft grass, feet first with a bit of a roll out, but I still got fairly badly injured even though I was young and fit... broken ankle, busted elbow, really shook up. I don't know how people can fall much further than this without suffering life changing injuries.
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I hear you slippy. Many people you talk to about this are totally deluded about how far you can jump or fall. They'll say things like "oh, yeah, ten or twelve feet would be no problem at all" but you put them up there and it would suddenly be a different story. As you say, even 5ft would be quite a jump down for some.
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Especially if the person is a bit of a chubber, sixteen or seventeen stone is a lot for the ankles to take at any height.
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On "24 hours in A&E" recently, was a guy who fell twelve feet from a ladder, and he was in a dreadful state!
Add to that an extra 6ft, for the height of his head, and that's a long fall. You could fall from zero height, and hit your head, and be seriously dead! |
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX1V38kUOJg
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ski jumpers manage to fall a good distance but slope is designed
to make landing easy we used to jump out of upstairs windows at parties whilst aged 18-20 its not that far, garage rooves, simples.....not that i would at my age 20ft straight down is pretty risky, lucky you had realisation of your position. |
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Landing on your feet...watch the Parkour guys, and they seem to manage ridiculous heights!
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When I fell of that ladder I must have landed on my feet and rolled onto my shoulder/ head. I was out cold and had a fit apparently (can't remember). Hospital signed me out the same day and phoned me the next one to come straight back in.
Lift shaft I went straight down but the machine I was holding ( a caulking gun) was attached to an airhose which may have slow me. How me or the welder never got injured never mind seriously is beyond me. Any one of the 3 (me, the staging plank and caulking gun) could have killed the welder. There were at least 1 killed every year in that shipyard, I've never felt safer since I left (and that includes falling off that ladder.) It's not the falling that kills, it's the sudden stop at the end! |
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I fell all the way from heaven
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Used to do circuit training when I was young and fit. This included a drop roll onto a double gym mattress usually from 6 to 9 ft. The most we were allowed to go was from 12 ft and that was pretty scary. Perfectly fine onto double mattress but wouldn't want to do it on anything more rigid than that.
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My father fell 200 feet about 35 years ago and is still alive.
It was at the Himalayas near K2. A group of 10 men were trekking in bad weather, all tied to each other through safety ropes, with my father leading. All of a sudden(yeah) the mountain sort of ended and he went into free fall, dragging one person with him. The other person died. My father had plaster on his whole upper body(probably on legs as well though i dont know as ive seen that in pics only and hes always wearing trousers). He says it was free fall but its hard to believe that as the sudden thud should have killed him, no? Probably rolled down the mountain at a steep angle. Have never personally talked to him about the incident, only heard stories from extended family members. |
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The plaster he had covered everything on his upper body except his face and hands. Even the head had plaster around it.
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Stirling Moss fell 3 storeys 6 years ago at the age of 80.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2010/mar/08/stirling-moss-admitted-to-hospital He must be made of stern stuff. |
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Oh my word. I must stop looking at this thread. It's making me feel quite ill.
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Me too M_D, I have got terrible vertigo, it's my only fear!
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I've done many bungee jumps when I was a bit younger but don't like even being on a ladder to clean the top floor windows!
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lol slippy you sound like my brother is - he won't even go up the ladder to the loft
 I jumped about 10-12 feet off a wall once telling my mate it was a shortcut - I was very drunk think that's why I only had a small sprain after though! |
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I'm ok with heights, I just don't like thinking of people injuring themselves.
Get a window cleaner, Slippy. |
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I'm ok with a small sprain
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I have got a window cleaner M-D, my gaff is 4 storeys and costs me £35 quid just for the front of the house, money for old rope!
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I expect you have a lot of windows tho' .
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I do have quite a few windows
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Trust the ladder is secured at the top ( prevent it sliding sideways ) and bottom to prevent it slipping back?
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an air stewardess fell out of a plane at 40,000 ft? she survived? although she was busted up. Guinness world records?
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33,000 feet +
. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovic |
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we should ask her to do it again from 40,000 ft....
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think she died last month
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Yes, she did
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The fall killed her.
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Acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 metres per second every second. Doesn't sound much until you realize that's the equivalent of 0 to 60 mph in 2.75 seconds.
So falling 20 feet is the equivalent of gunning a Bugatti Veyron into a brick wall 20 feet away. Neither is to be recommended imo. |
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Many years ago I knew a kid who was a bit of a Dare devil, he reckoned he could jump off this 40ft building in to a tree about 15 ft below. One night he went missing and was found the next morning, dead below the tree.
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