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See the original image at telegraph.co.uk

Blind luck helps archer make one-in-a-million shot

telegraph.co.uk — An archer has achieved a one-in-a-million feat of marksmanship after splitting one arrow with another. What makes the shot even more remarkable is that Tilly Trotter is blind.

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  • whyufail, on 03/28/2008, -1/+103Myth Confirmed?
    • cawpin, on 03/28/2008, -10/+16This isn't really that amazing. If you fire enough arrows and are consistent you'll eventually get one. I've had several near successes and I haven't shot a bow regularly for almost 10 years. It's not even close to one in a million, more like a couple thousand.
      • AMSRay, on 03/28/2008, -2/+19You did read that she was blind, right?
        • Ragzouken, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1'and are consistent', you can be consistent in positioning your arms without using your sight.
      • sockpuppets, on 03/28/2008, -0/+24Cawpin is blind too, which makes his post even more amazing.
      • LeCollectif, on 03/28/2008, -2/+4SHE'S BLIND!!!
        Christ, you'd think that some of the people posting in here do this as regularly as they brush their teeth (then, of course, do a quadruple backflip from the doorway of their washrooms, through the hall, and neatly tuck themselves into bed, hitting the lightswitch in the process.)
        • scubaman5000, on 03/28/2008, -0/+4How did you find out about my going to bed routine?
    • Poochyfud, on 03/28/2008, -2/+12It's pretty tough. The Mythbusters used some absurd methods to cheat and do it easily and they still couldn't do it completely. I guess blind luck can beat science though.
      • Fratz, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3Not exactly. IIRC, the MythBusters were trying to show that someone could split an arrow at will. They showed that this wasn't possible, and in order to replicate the myth, they had to use a robot and a hollow target arrow. Science didn't say it was impossible to accomplish; it just said that luck was much more of a factor in the success than skill, given all the variables involved.
      • sougly, on 03/28/2008, -3/+4Mythbusters is not a good representative for science.
    • centran, on 03/28/2008, -0/+6It never said she completely split the other arrow. She just robin hooded it. She probably got the arrow she fired stuck into the back of the arrow on the target. That is what usually happens with composite arrows and is referred to as robin hooding it.
      Amazing feat by itself but too also be blind!
    • Razster, on 03/28/2008, -2/+8Myth Busted!
      I emailed Mythbusters and took pictures of our local Archery Shop here in Redding California - We have 13 Examples of people shooting an arrow in twain/in two or stacking as it is called.
      it is possible and has been done many times - just go to your local Archery shop and look around sometime, you'll even see people who have done it with pictures taken of them holding their arrows, guarantee!
      • theaceoffire, on 03/29/2008, -1/+2O.o wouldn't that make it "Myth Confirmed", since you seem to state that it IS possible to shoot one in twain?
    • lukas88, on 03/28/2008, -0/+10The mythbusters was trying to see if it could be split from end to end. Even the article of the mythbusters story admits it is possible to do a half split (according to the accounts of the archers at the fair).

      This article doesn't say to what extent the arrow was split.
    • doctechnical, on 03/28/2008, -0/+4In other news, today a monkey sat down at a PC and typed "To be, or not to be. That is the questiom."
    • Coyote47, on 03/31/2008, -0/+0They actually covered what likely happened in the beginning of the episode. except they called it telescoping and it didn't go all the way from "nock to tip"
  • Jamesara13, on 03/28/2008, -7/+24It was definitely a Patriot Arrow.
    • albinorhino101, on 03/28/2008, -4/+5Only if we can call her Blinkin'
    • cogit0, on 03/28/2008, -2/+6oh come on people, don't digg down a great movie reference.
    • consoneo, on 03/28/2008, -0/+7He split Robin's arrow in TWAIN!
    • bsl4doc, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2the archers who hit the target may stay...the rest of you, bugger off!!
    • studmuffnin, on 03/28/2008, -2/+1I get another SHOT

      great movie
    • LuckyASN, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2Lets face it, you've gotta be a man to wear tights!
  • atbnet, on 03/28/2008, -3/+69Someone alert Mythbusters!
    • SpectreFire, on 03/28/2008, -1/+16Quick! To the internet- Oh wait...
    • Lukesed, on 03/28/2008, -1/+7But was it from knock to tip?
      • sockpuppets, on 03/28/2008, -0/+14Are you coming onto me in a way I can't understand?
  • onionlayer, on 03/28/2008, -9/+2Robin Hood ftw
  • jbob2000, on 03/28/2008, -2/+25No pics? No vid?
    ...
    Never Happened.
  • Myrow, on 03/28/2008, -2/+4So lucky, myth confirmed.
  • saggygrandma, on 03/28/2008, -17/+3Its a lot easier for a blind person to aim at the exact same spot twice than a seeing person to aim at an actual target twice and split an arrow.

    I mean really, she obviously has been doing this for a while, its not really surprising this would happen after so many repetitions...
    • xsidekick409, on 03/28/2008, -0/+5Why? Couldn't the person with seeing eyes just use the force?
    • LeCollectif, on 03/28/2008, -1/+6Oh god. Give me a break. You basically said that sight is an unimportant sense in aim. I don't think I've ever read something so retarded.
      /Unless you were being facetious, in which case, hilarious.
    • R3spawn, on 03/28/2008, -0/+5You think? I'm an archer and I knew people who have been shooting for more than 20 years yet most of them haven't done it, then we get beginners who can do it in their first session. It's really down to luck
  • naterpoke, on 03/28/2008, -8/+1I saw split arrows at a local archery shop when I went to take my hunter's safety course, they were aluminum too, not graphite
    • Hananda, on 03/28/2008, -1/+4My uncle used to do that. Drove one arrow into another with a mallet, sold them to tourists and so on.
      • naterpoke, on 03/29/2008, -1/+1not it was actally arrows that had been split, it was at an archery range ffs it HAS to happen
  • GregtheSped, on 03/28/2008, -9/+4http://kwc.org/mythbusters/2005/08/mythbusters_kil ...

    but they busted that! and mythbusters is NEVER wrong... :-/
    • TheRealBlack, on 03/28/2008, -1/+4it's happened before, remember the revisit on the sniper scope shot one?
  • LastSight, on 03/28/2008, -9/+1lolz wat luck
    does he get like cash prize for it though?
  • Zekaer, on 03/28/2008, -1/+5Mythbusters are wrong.... UNPOSSIBLE!11
  • alien420, on 03/28/2008, -0/+57she must have been using an aimbot.
  • selmer, on 03/28/2008, -0/+8She probably just tapped a nearby metal object and used her super sonar-based vision like the Daredevil...anyone with super sonar-based vision can make that shot
    • JusticeFriend, on 03/29/2008, -1/+1Daredevil... WHAT A ***** MOVIE!!
      (Sorry, I have to say it)
  • Humdain, on 03/28/2008, -6/+2I feel a bit uncomfortable with that lady looking like herself pointing a bow at me.
  • McLovin69, on 03/28/2008, -8/+0Impossible mythbusters proved it wrong. This article is fake.
    • opticwind, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2Hard fact of life: Mythbusters is not scientific evidence to cite.
  • phybere, on 03/28/2008, -0/+9Bah, Robin Hood could do this every time (the real one)

    Also, they don't even show a picture of the arrow.
  • AceKicker, on 03/28/2008, -3/+7You Split The Arrow in TWaiN!
  • williamapple, on 03/28/2008, -7/+1This was proven to not be possible on Mythbusters. I'm skeptical....
    • Hananda, on 03/28/2008, -0/+6It's not impossible, there are hundreds of documented cases of people striking one arrow with another. See the half dozen or so posts in these comments where they state that what Mythbuster's showed to be "impossible" was splitting the arrow completely.
  • BinaryDelt, on 03/28/2008, -0/+13Blind people are ruling Digg today.

    Seeing FTL.
  • RyeBrye, on 03/28/2008, -1/+5The mythbusters said that splitting an arrow from "tip to tail" was what was not possible in their show... Since there is no picture of this, it's hard to tell if that's what the archer did.
    • CrackyJSquirrel, on 03/28/2008, -0/+4I think its possible, by what they explained happens. They showed that even when the arrow is guided to go down the target arrow it still followed the grain and sliced to the side. It might be possible, by some one in a million chance, that the arrow caught a grain that did run from tip to tail..
      Who knows, without pics you cant say its for sure. But either way, a bind woman so accurate is pretty cool.. yay her. :)
    • redwritinghood, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2My father, now 83, was a fantastic archer and I saw him split arrows several times in his younger days. However, the arrows he split in half were wooden, whereas, most arrows today are either aluminum or composite.
  • lukas88, on 03/28/2008, -2/+5Amazing but certainly not completely by chance. Her husband tells her how close the last shot was and she adjusts her aim based on that. It required amazing perceptual ability by both her and her husband, and perhaps a little luck, but it was no fluke that she was so accurate.
  • tristanbethe, on 03/28/2008, -0/+4Your eyes can deceive you...do not trust them
  • lusher, on 03/28/2008, -1/+9She just used up her one in a million chance.
    • opticwind, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3Ha, so much for her chance at a miracle cure for her blindness.
      Spiderman: "Everybody gets one."
  • mjseaman, on 03/28/2008, -0/+6Now let's see her shoot an apple off her husband's head
  • LeCollectif, on 03/28/2008, -0/+4Good for her. That's an amazing feat for someone lacking the very sense one needs for aim.

    As for those who said it was busted on Mythbusters, that segment has been argued to high heaven, and even when watching it myself, there were variables that they didn't consider. I can't remember what they were though, as it's been a long time since I've seen that episode.
  • Zaphrod, on 03/28/2008, -0/+12Years ago my dad and my uncle went out to target practice before archery season in Pennsylvania and during the practice my dad shot my uncles arrow this way. They came back with one arrow stuck inside the other (they were hollow aluminum) and my uncle was bitching the whole time that my dad owed him $7 for the arrow.
  • lothaire, on 03/28/2008, -2/+3From the pic, it looks like they were not using wooden arrows as per the Robin Hood myth. It was this wooden arrow myth that Mythbusters addressed and busted. Since modern arrows are hollow, I can't see that it would be that difficult to split one as long as the second arrow hit square on the end of the first.
  • natgem, on 03/28/2008, -1/+4nice job!
  • jmaxwell, on 03/28/2008, -6/+2So, this is newsworthy in the UK?
    Well I suppose it is not that much better here in the US.
  • ssmith2k3, on 03/28/2008, -0/+7I still don't think I'd let her shoot an apple off my head.

    Seriously though, that's amazing. I didn't know that could even happen in real life. Good for her!
  • mohaine, on 03/28/2008, -1/+7Mythbusters "proved" it impossible to split a wooden arrow. They believed the grain of the wood would always kick the second arrow out. Modern Al/Graphite arrows are hollow and are pretty easy to split. Anybody who shoots archery for very long will eventually split one.
  • xedd, on 03/28/2008, -0/+13The Force is strong with this one.
  • snareguy17, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oom4hMMyDwE - Nothing needs to be said aside from "watch this."
    • EvilJelloMan, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1DUGG! I was fully expecting a rickroll and instead got a surreal combination of hotness, awesomeness, and hasselhoffness. Winrar.
    • LegomanArt, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1That... was awesome.
    • kaplanfx, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1im going to click, it better not be rick!
    • Scycon, on 03/29/2008, -0/+0Expecting rick roll... boy was i wrong.

      And is that the only video or pic that exists of her? :P
  • barroni, on 03/28/2008, -0/+5My dad did in twice in competition in the late 80's early 90's
    apart from the small fortune worth of sights luck played a big part.
    He was using Browning compound bow
    Anyway its still cool thing to do
  • FlexibleFlyer88, on 03/28/2008, -0/+2pretty amazing
  • montroller, on 03/28/2008, -1/+11Why would you allow a blind woman to shoot a bow and arrow i mean really your just asking problems with that.
    • heymikedude, on 03/28/2008, -1/+2rofl! the same exact thing i was thinking.
    • crazyhorse13, on 03/28/2008, -1/+2"she also won a gold medal at the British Blind Sports National Championship last year."
      ^^ I prolly couldn't watch that event without laughing.
  • SilentSpyder, on 03/28/2008, -0/+3Meh! I saw Zatoichi do the same thing and it was a moving target.
  • skags, on 03/28/2008, -1/+3At my archery club we keep a display of Robin hood arrows. The club has been collecting such arrows for over 15 years now (noone seems to know when the first 2 were collected). The display has 11 pairs of aluminum arrows jammed together, and one pair with a wooden arrow splitting an aluminum shaft.

    On our traditional league nights (no compound bows) we have a running pot trying to shoot other peoples arrows, a dollar to take a shot from the target shooting position you are on (the targets are all placed at different distances and angles).
  • MrWraith, on 03/28/2008, -5/+2buried for being boring
    • kitkatsavvy, on 03/28/2008, -0/+1ur boring - i bet you cant split an arrow or even make a banana split
  • opticwind, on 03/28/2008, -2/+2I see what you did there....although clearly, she won`t.
  • Acglaphotis, on 03/28/2008, -1/+1HAX.
  • MrMetal, on 03/28/2008, -2/+3Why are we giving bows to blind women?
  • kgibby, on 03/28/2008, -2/+1who the hell ever said this was impossible? Go to any archery range and you'll hear many stories of arrow splitting. A close relative of mine did it too, still has the split arrow and all.

    It is awesome that this blind man did it though. Amazing actually.
    • kgibby, on 03/29/2008, -1/+1and i meant woman. just in case anybody caught that.
  • R3miel7, on 03/29/2008, -1/+2WHERE IS YOUR SCIENCE NOW, MYTHBUSTERS?!
  • CaffeinePowered, on 03/29/2008, -1/+1But but...Mythbusters said it wasn't possible!
  • JulyZerg, on 03/29/2008, -0/+2The closest I've ever come is with darts, when I broke the little "feather things" off of one.
    But doing it blind? :O
  • JusticeFriend, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1Id hit it.
  • Shen4891, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1These British sensationalist articles get dugg way too much. Pics or it didn't happen. /bury
  • LegendX, on 03/29/2008, -0/+1This reminds me of the Drizzt's mentor, a blind ranger, that had perfect aim with his markmenship.
  • heathengray, on 03/31/2008, -0/+0"Wizards have found, that Million to One chances occur as often as 9 times out of 10."
    -- Terry Pratchet
  •  

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