Serious question

how far can a man fall (onto pavement/a car/something very solid) w/ out doing irretrievable damage to himself.

sub-question: Can a relatively hardy man in his peak get thrown off of a fourth story balcony and land on a car without getting crippled for life or killed?

If there's nobody there, does he make a sound?????

are you planning on doing that to someone? or did you just see that in a movie?

its a story someone told about himself, and I want to see if you think its valid.

yeah, i don't think it's possible to escape serious injury

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It all depends on how one lands and what one lands on. Garbage is far better to land in than concrete, of course.

I think your subquestion can be answered yes, provisionally, assuming that the impact was taken on the shoulders, arms and legs, rather than the pelvis, neck, back or head or feet.

Yeah, he'll probably feel it tomorrow, but if the adrenaline is running high, it won't really be so noticeable.

you would say that said person could fall 4 stories and land on a car and not, say, break his spine/legs/neck?

the same.

Yes, it is possible that someone could fall 30 some feet and be relatively okay. I think it is far more likely that someone who fell 30 some feet would be seriously injured, and that even if X walked away, there would have been a press report.

Ask to see the newspaper clippings.

Having known some ahem... "Gentlemen and Scholars" .... in my life, I trust very little without firm verification of that sort of thing. Most people just don't live extraordinary lives.

There's cases where people have fallen over while walking and died, and at the same time I remember a story where someone was skydiving and his parachute didn't open, and he walked away.
If your protagonist fell 4 floors onto the hood of a car, he might survive easily if he was very muscular, for example.

It's important! Oh, and did the car have a rack?

midsize car, no rack.

That hitting the roof, center on, of a car with enough roof area might give you a better chance of surviving than with a small car. The larger roof area allows more deformation when you hit, giving you a slight (very slight) airbag effect...a van or station wagon would be even better, but a roof rack would likely pucture something your body might have some use for, and a roof design that includes any substatial structural members for rigidity or as support in case of rolling would probably be less forgiving. I imagine the advantage would be small, but as falls go, 4 floors (what, about 60 feet?) is not horrible, and if you fell right, and onto the right surface, you might be able to stagger away, but I doubt you'd get away with NO ill effects.

10 floors? Another story altogether.

need more opinions.

really wierd, but I do need to know the answer to this.

a potentially fatal fall. At least that's what the paramedics and rescue crew who rescued me said... after I fell off a mountain (roughly 4 times my height - I broke my back...landed on rock)

potentially fatal because it doesn't always kill you outright but can cause life threatening injuries...however, some people do walk away with minor bumps and bruises...depending on what they land on...and if anything breaks their fall along the way.

They said it was an "as a rule" kind of thing...it gives them an "idea" of what to expect when they get a call...

this guy is 5'10 and lets say he fell 30ft. (all I know is that its from the fourth story)

I landed on a rock jetting out of the mountain..it broke my fall, you could say...

My left side was a mess from the scrapes ... and I had a rock embedded in my left foot.(which hurt the most of all my injuries)

I was lucid and alert.

I have the dubious honor of being the only person to have survived that fall...I fell 11 years ago...and I still hold that "honor"...all others have died.

Stranger things have happened..and people survive things you wouldn't think they could survive...as for the person you're talking about...I have no idea what his story is...

he was about 16, and a strong guy, and he supposedly got thrown off of a 4th story balcony. I'm trying to see if his story is true. He has no physical problems whatsoever.... he plays sports.

Like I said, I only fell 20-24 feet and I still broke my back...

I could see if a tree branch broke your fall, but a rock? Wow, you're lucky to be alive!

Were you high up on the mountain when you had your fall and did they have to do a helicopter rescue? Is it a rock climbing trail or a mountain trail? I'm just curious. It sounds like a famous trail, and a dangerous one, if numerous people have fallen and died in that same spot. What makes it so dangerous? As you can tell, I'm interested in mountain stuff :)

We were diving into the river. We had been going down the mountain via the river and either shooting over the smaller falls on our bottoms or diving from a handy cliff. Then we would swim or wade to the next "thrill" spot.

I went to dive and changed my mind -feared I wouldn't be able to clear the rock jutting out just before you hit the river. As I turned on the rock area everyone was diving from, all wet and slick, I fell.

Down I went....s-l-o-w-l-y...or so it seemed

I landed on my feet, fell to my butt... then literally bounced back to my feet, before ending up on my backside.

I ripped nails from my fingers trying to grab anything and everything on the way down. I ended up with a fistful of honeysuckles in my hand.

They tried to do the helicopter but the trees were too thick.

Eventually,the rescue workers made a chain along the narrow bank along the river and carried me out. 2 of my rescuers went into the river...scary moment...cause I just knew I was going in with them...back board and all. Hard to swim while strapped to a board.. The rescuers were able to swim to to the bank and other people jumped into make sure they would make it.

This was at Waters Creek (along the Chattahoochee River route) in the North Georgia mountains. Not really a "famous" spot unless you're a local. You can hike...no real mountain climbing along that part... farther up the mountain for that..


I laid on that rock for quite some time while the best method of getting me out was being debated. During that time, the park supervisor for that area drove down to "see" me. He struggled over, looked down at me, and proclaimed "You'll be OK. You're alive."

He then told me I was the first to survive that fall and he just "had to come see the person that lived." He didn't believe the initial calls that I was "still moving".

Seems all the others hit their head on the edge of the rock and died. He then went into graphic detail of how they looked.

I think because I did land on my feet initially instead of being sprawled out, I saved my head from being bashed by the rock.

There have been 4(edit: IIRC) other falls at that spot since my fall... and all those have died as well.

People tend to get drunk and think they can just jump...the biggest reason they "fall"

I was sober. I just lost my nerve...knew what I was doing...just figured I wouldn't make the dive.

landed on your feet at first, although I wish you didn't get hurt at all. I got the shudders thinking how your nails were coming undone as you were grasping on the way down. OUCH! When you first started slipping off the cliff, it must've seemed like time was standing still.

I'm glad you're alive and well after that amazing experience!

me too!

Were you climbing or hiking? Just curious....

Edit: Nevermind, I read all your info below. Wow. 'Lucky to be alive' must seem really trite and cliche to you, but I can't think of anything else to say.

North Georgia ....from the paths along the mountain (several "diving" rocks along the way) down to an out cropping near the river bank.

Neither climbing nor hiking..we were going down the mountain via the river route.

We must have been posting at the same time- I edited my reply to you, above. Wow.

it helps if you're drunk. Rigidity is bad in a fall: the stiffer you're holding yourself, the more brittle you're gonna be. Conversely, if you keep yourself loose, you kinda crumple as you land, absorbing the energy of the fall, and are more likely to escape injury.

Also, as previously stated, the roof of a car is deformable and will absorb energy.

he wasn't drunk.

and a guy who jumped at the same place that I did once told me that his chute failed when he was just 50 feet off the ground. He shattered his hip.

A couple of weeks ago, a guy fell about 15 feet out of a tree and shattered his face. He's not doing too well.

I guess it all depends on what you hit.

it just depends on how you land. I had a neighbor who was roofing a small shed, had his scaffolding at about 6 ft. The scaffolding broke, he fell backwards and landed on his back and the back of his head on concrete. I found him unconscious and he was just awakening when I called 911. He could barely speak legibly and I knew he was hurt seriously. His speech cleared up and he was lucid when his wife arrived. He coded in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and died a week later. He had broken his neck and had massive internal head injuries.

Last fall, hubby and his ladder fell at work, from a height of about 12 feet. Hubby landed on concrete on his butt and side. No broken bones but one god awful bruise from his lower back and side down to his ankle.

so your hubby had a massive bruise from landing in the best possible position after a fall of 12 ft. What happens if a dude lands on his butt after a 30 ft. fall onto a car?

but I would think if that guy really did fall that far, he wouldn't walk away unscathed. My hubby was laid up for about 3 weeks with swelling and deep bruises and difficulty moving. He's 50 though so a younger man might heal quicker.

Onto a car roof and only had a small scratch. Obviously, 4 stories is much higher than 2 stories. I would expect some broken bones at least, but it is possible that those bones could heal completely in time.

When I was in anxiety support group, one of the women told us that her boyfriend fell out of a 30 foot tree and broke many bones. Tree trimming was his career so he may have had some training on falling. The doctors did expect him to make a full recovering, but not for several months.

a fourth story fall will fuck you up...you may not die...but you will probobly have a heart attack from the pain...

are you serious?

I have no more info than that, I just really feel he would not escape ANY injury at all. No matter how young or muscular. Not from four stories.

If it happened years ago, his story could be true. If it happened less than six months ago and he doesn't have anything to show you as proof, like scars, I don't think that it is credible.

to the pavement. The had to resecitate him several times and he went comatose for 2 months. When he became responsive they brought him to my sub-acute unit where he stayed for 2 months till he woke up and even walked again. This kid was young and strong. That worked out to his advantage. His Mom brought him by the unit a couple of moths ago, walking on his own, but still has some cognitive problems that will improve.
Six stories is a long drop! He survived but will probably never be the way he was before.

Yup - left a dent in the elevator roof!

he fell down a 9 story elevator shaft...

he spent a few months in the hospital and walks kinda funny now...

But here is the kicker:

1) He was on the roof in a snowstorm at 3-4AM

2) He was piss drunk

3) He was in law school at the time

4) He was smart too - even made law review

and the big one.....

5) Yes - he is suing the apartment complex.


Edited for more sensational subject line :-)

What a fucking douchebag.

you contemplating throwing someone off of a roof?!?!?!

dont want them to live?!?!!?!

Concrete would have killed him, but thank goodness for the rain that weekend. Didn't hurt anything.