Unplanned Freefall? Some Survival Tips
Well-written but a bit light on information. I thought about this a while back when I had the chance to try free-falling in an indoor wind tunnel.<p>You can control four variables: your speed, your landing position, your landing orientation, and your muscles.<p>- Increase your surface area as much as you can, that&#x27;s your only way to slow down. Best case scenario you&#x27;ll find a parachute, put it on, and slow down to 25mph or so; worst case, you&#x27;ll manage to point yourself in a bullet shape and hit 200 mph. Realistically you&#x27;ll go into a &quot;flat&quot; position and sail along around 120mph.<p>- Make yourself &quot;flat&quot; until you&#x27;re about to land, then position yourself such that you land feet first.<p>- You can move, as the site said, about 2 miles horizontally falling from 15,000 feet: aim for trees, a heap of soil, or snow if possible. If you know the area, aim for any buildings with a large glass skylight - that&#x27;s saved two known freefallers [0].<p>- Relax your muscles as much as you can. This can greatly improve your odds. By &quot;greatly improve your odds&quot; I am not kidding: this is almost definitely the single best thing you can do, and being fully relaxed can make you half as likely to die. [1]<p>There&#x27;s also a very good possibility you&#x27;re not at 35,000 feet. For example:<p>- You fall off the Burj Khalifa, 830 meters high. You&#x27;ll fall for about 20 seconds, the last 5 or so near terminal velocity. Use your body to move and aim for the trees near the base of the tower - you&#x27;ve got enough time to make it, easily.<p>- You fall off a very tall building, ~500 meters or so. Same as the Burj Khalifa but you have less time, so think fast.<p>- You fall off a shorter building. There&#x27;s no time to maneuver or slow down. With the few seconds you have, point your feet down and relax.<p>If you&#x27;re over water, your odds are very low. The best option is to go in feet-first like a pencil dive.<p>Remember, you _do_ have an OK chance at survival. Between 5 and 15 people have survived free fall, most of which did not know what to do. From 15,000 feet up, you can land wherever you want inside a 13 square mile area - 2 miles in any direction. That&#x27;s probably enough to get you to some trees at the very least. You can draw that on a map with this tool [2].<p>You can seriously improve your odds of survival by following these steps. Landing on snow, or a swamp, or a glass skylight makes your odds quite good. Landing in trees makes your odds OK. Making yourself flat gives you more time, and grabbing onto debris - if you can - can increase your chances of survival by 5 times [3]. Then, simply relaxing can double your chances of survival.<p>Finally, once you&#x27;ve hit the ground - regardless of what you did - there&#x27;s a decent chance you&#x27;re still alive, even if you&#x27;ll die soon. Spend a short amount of time to stop external bleeding, keep your wounds clean and contact emergency services as soon as you can - ultimately, they will know far better than you what to do.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Alan_Magee" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Alan_Magee</a><p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dx.doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.alcohol.2012.08.006" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;dx.doi.org&#x2F;10.1016&#x2F;j.alcohol.2012.08.006</a><p>[2] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;obeattie.github.io&#x2F;gmaps-radius&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;obeattie.github.io&#x2F;gmaps-radius&#x2F;</a><p>[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.popularmechanics.com&#x2F;adventure&#x2F;outdoors&#x2F;a5045&#x2F;4344036&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.popularmechanics.com&#x2F;adventure&#x2F;outdoors&#x2F;a5045&#x2F;434...</a>