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.You can control four variables: your speed, your landing position, your landing orientation, and your muscles.- Increase your surface area as much as you can, that's your only way to slow down. Best case scenario you'll find a parachute, put it on, and slow down to 25mph or so; worst case, you'll manage to point yourself in a bullet shape and hit 200 mph. Realistically you'll go into a "flat" position and sail along around 120mph.- Make yourself "flat" until you're about to land, then position yourself such that you land feet first.- 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's saved two known freefallers [0].- Relax your muscles as much as you can. This can greatly improve your odds. By "greatly improve your odds" 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]There's also a very good possibility you're not at 35,000 feet. For example:- You fall off the Burj Khalifa, 830 meters high. You'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've got enough time to make it, easily.- You fall off a very tall building, ~500 meters or so. Same as the Burj Khalifa but you have less time, so think fast.- You fall off a shorter building. There's no time to maneuver or slow down. With the few seconds you have, point your feet down and relax.If you're over water, your odds are very low. The best option is to go in feet-first like a pencil dive.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's probably enough to get you to some trees at the very least. You can draw that on a map with this tool [2].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.Finally, once you've hit the ground - regardless of what you did - there's a decent chance you're still alive, even if you'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.[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Magee[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.alcohol.2012.08.006[2] http://obeattie.github.io/gmaps-radius/[3] http://www.popularmechanics.com/adventure/outdoors/a5045/434...