What is Digg?79 Comments
- inactive, on 11/13/2007, -1/+62This story is misleading.
His parachute did not release to 100% functionality but it STILL RELEASED.
The semi-released parachute produced enough drag to slow his fall considerably.
Summary, he was not traveling at terminal velocity when he hit the ground. - inactive, on 11/14/2007, -5/+62Now that's what I call "Breaking News"!
- wrttnwrd, on 11/13/2007, -1/+39Remember, when you hit the ground, ROLL.
- Dalatejc, on 11/13/2007, -3/+34Tap Z or R twice.
- inactive, on 11/14/2007, -2/+30I can't decide if that was funny or if I should tell you to look up "terminal velocity" on google.
- jeffiek, on 11/14/2007, -9/+32Well duh, it wasn't terminal, he lived.
- ephrils1, on 11/13/2007, -0/+22If at first you don't succeed maybe sky diving isn't for you.
- andrewcsayer, on 11/13/2007, -0/+21He scored 100% in the theory test, but failed the practical.
- DarkerMaster, on 11/14/2007, -5/+25Sounds like the begining of Halo 3
How far did he fall?
2km easy.
the gel layer could have taken most of the impact. - budsstud26, on 11/14/2007, -1/+17Not the first...from wikipedia:
Flight Sergeant Nick Alkemade (died June 22, 1987) was a tail gunner for an Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster Bomber during World War II who survived a fall of 18,045 feet (5500 meters) without a parachute after his plane was shot down over Germany.
On March 23, 1944, Alkemade's plane was flying near Berlin, Germany, when it was attacked by a Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 fighter plane, caught fire and began to spiral out of control. Because his parachute was in the cabin, Alkemade opted to jump from the aircraft, preferring his death to be quick.
Alkemade fell 18,045 feet (5500 meters) to the ground below. His fall was broken by pine trees and a soft snow cover on the ground. He was able to move his arms and legs and suffered only a sprained leg.
He was subsequently captured by the Gestapo and was a celebrated POW. He was later released.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Alkemade
Also:
Alan Eugene Magee (January 13, 1919 – December 20, 2003) was an American airman during World War II who survived a 22,000 foot (6,700 meter) fall from his damaged B-17 Flying Fortress. He was featured in Smithsonian Magazine as one of the 10 most amazing survival stories of World War II.
Alan Magee was born in Plainfield, New Jersey as the youngest of six children. Immediately after the Pearl Harbor attack Magee joined the United States Army Air Corps and was assigned as a ball turret gunner on a B-17 bomber nicknamed "Snap, Crackle, and Pop".[1]
On 3 January 1943 Magee's B-17 was on a daylight bombing run over Saint-Nazaire, France when German fighters shot off a section of the right wing causing the aircraft to enter a deadly spin. This was Magee's seventh mission.
Magee was wounded in the attack but managed to escape from the ball turret. Unfortunately, his parachute had been damaged and rendered useless by the attack, so having no choice, he leapt from the plane without a parachute, rapidly losing consciousness due to the altitude.
Magee fell over four miles before crashing through the glass roof of the St. Nazaire railroad station. Somehow the glass roof cushioned Magee's impact and rescuers found him still alive on the floor of the station.
Magee was taken as a Prisoner of War and given medical treatment by his captors. He had 28 shrapnel wounds in addition to the damage from the fall. He had several broken bones, severe damage to his nose and eye, lung and kidney damage, and his right arm was nearly severed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee - DeskFlyer, on 11/13/2007, -3/+16Metric > Imperial
- DeviantDragon, on 11/13/2007, -6/+17More like skydiver survives the stopping of a 2 kilometer fall.
- lkv87, on 11/13/2007, -5/+16who doesnt use the metric system ?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17 ...
...yes, i buried you. - GemStar38, on 11/13/2007, -0/+8you know, if I had seen someone fall like that and was a first-timer there would be no way in hell I would jump
- inactive, on 11/13/2007, -2/+10Pics or didn't happen. Ok it probably did happen but just show us the pics.
- cgruber, on 11/13/2007, -0/+6He should of brought a self-inflating raft and aimed for a snow covered mountain adjacent to a roaring river. Noob.
- AriaStar, on 11/13/2007, -4/+10Buried for intolerance.
- thebellmaster1x, on 11/13/2007, -1/+7Imperial does not function well. The conversions are impractical, the units THEMSELVES are impractical (1 slug is over 14 kilos)--and there's no prefixes to alleviate that problem--and did you know that some standards (namely the pound and the inch) are defined in metric terms?
Trust me, metric's much better. - inactive, on 11/13/2007, -0/+6Not sure I'd want to live through that.
- madm0nk, on 11/13/2007, -1/+6Buried for being a dumb as redneck.
- UNL1M1T3D, on 11/13/2007, -0/+5They don't make them like they used to, do they?
- thebellmaster1x, on 11/13/2007, -0/+5Buried for being an ignorant moron.
By the way, I'm from--and live in--the U.S. ***** imperial. - Namakemono, on 11/13/2007, -0/+5Unfortunately, the guy he landed on didn't make it.
- WhoDoneIt, on 11/13/2007, -0/+5I think you meant to say only terrorists do NOT use the metric system.
- kingvik, on 11/13/2007, -1/+5Like this http://youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU
- inactive, on 11/13/2007, -1/+4Pun-tacular!
- eternal464, on 11/13/2007, -0/+3true, but the title is misleading. He didn't free fall to the ground, in fact he had quite a bit of resistance from a partially open chute. Lucky guy
- niczar, on 11/13/2007, -1/+4You should teach that to Nasa and a certain Mars mission team.
- andyd273, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2Oh snap!
That's gotta hurt... - chrismgtis, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2Quoted from DropZone.com:
Ok heres the lowdown from one of our jumpers who was there: "From the ground the jump looked fine (no seperation. both jumpmasters with student).
Canopys opened with no aparent malfunctions. I was out at the arrow when I saw canopys and counted 4 in the sky.
I spotted the student canopy which was blue and then turned the arrow to the right. I then noticed 3 canopys spiraling down and a red canopy flying the other way. I turned the arrow to the left 180 with no responce. One jumpmaster was coming towards me to land at the arrow.
At this time I knew there was something wrong. The student canopy was doing a fair speed spiral to the right. As I started running back to the hanger the other jumpmaster spiraled down as quick as he could trying to catch up, but the student was spiraling quicker below him.
I watched until the student hit the ground then ran over to assist where I could. By the time I got there several people where already doing what they could. An ambulance driving by at the the time was some great luck as well as the SES. Everybody there did an incrediable job in helping the ambos and comforting craig. After the incident there was a tandem that had been waiting for some time to jump and she was still very keen to jump, so we did only one more load that day. As for the media they interviewed whuffos and tandem passengers all day on sunday. No comments or interviews were made by us untill we knew we could. The guy David Wright was a tandem and they interviewed him after landing. - opiniastrous, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2I think it's pretty safe to say that is a meme past it's expiry date...
- inactive, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2http://philsblogging.com/2007/screw-the-metric-sys ...
This is my point of view of the metric system. It is cynical. - catfud, on 11/13/2007, -8/+10only terrorists use the metric system
- havokzero, on 11/13/2007, -1/+3Reading is boring... here's a video of a similar event:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgaLxD3wu6M - Armitage2k, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2It's not the fall that kills you... it's the sudden stop at the end.
- chrismgtis, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2I'm a licensed skydiver in the USA. We take as many precautions and safety measures as your typical NASA astronaut. Well maybe not that many precautions. Jumping out of airplanes is actually very simple and one of the easiest things in the world to do.
On occasion there are people in the sport who don't listen or don't do what they are trained when a problem occurs. I'm not sure if that is what happened here, but even so it doesn't happen very often. With more than 2 million jumps taking place a year around the world someone is bound to screw up.
Unfortunately just about all deaths that do occur are people that do what they want and not what they were trained. What is even more unfortunate is that sometimes those people who don't listen collide with other jumpers and more than one life is lost due to that stupidity.
When problems occur with skydivers, we are always very surprised at ourselves at how calm we are in those situations and how quick training takes over. I've had a few problems in the past, nothing serious, but training took over and I landed with no injuries.
It's just like anything else. If enough people do something, sooner or later someone is going to get hurt doing it, but skydiving is almost a testament to how many people can do something and do it safely. About the only ones that ever get hurt are the ones that refuse to use common sense. The rest... well, with millions of pack jobs a year a few people are bound to make a mistake. - stoanhart, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2In theory, practice is the same as theory.
In practice, it isn't. - TylerL82, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2I usually push Z right before I hit.
My inertia is thrown out, I do a forward flip in mid-air, and smack the ground with my ass. - grakker, on 11/13/2007, -1/+3as dumb as a redneck?
a dumb ass redneck? - krnldmp, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2I'm sure for his conscious moments he's spending some time complaining to himself that he did.
- jmscotty, on 11/14/2007, -4/+6I get your point, pwner84, but you were wrong on one thing; The skydiver *was* traveling at terminal velocity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity), it's just that it was a much slower "velocity" than if he did not have a parachute.
- DiscoJohn, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2If he's in critical condition, isn't it a little too soon to call?
- inactive, on 11/13/2007, -0/+2Misleading title for sure they should mention that his parachute at partially deployed. He did not hit the ground at free fall speed.
- Armitage2k, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1Jovi-Punch!!! Full Recovery!!
- thebellmaster1x, on 11/13/2007, -1/+2I'm sorry you want to take physics equations and stick 5280s in them from ***** nowhere. GET WITH THE PROGRAM. Everybody else has, why the hell can't you?
- bittie, on 11/13/2007, -1/+2Something similar happened on my first jump. The main chute partially opened, and my tadem guy yelled "Oh *****!' which is not what you want to hear your first time. He cut away the main chute and opened the reserve, which luckily opened fully. While we still had plenty of altitude, needless to say it scared the ***** out of me, but I'll go again in an instant.
- Satanael, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1Nice comment history jackass.
- Pillage, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1thank you for being "that person".
- madm0nk, on 11/15/2007, -0/+1either one.
- Zaneris, on 11/13/2007, -0/+1You're being dugg down by people who don't know much about physics I suppose... not really sure.
Anyway, Dugg for the witty physics comment! Lol :D -
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