American hiker dies after fall in Swiss Alps excursion.
Associated Press: GENEVA – Police in southern Switzerland say the body of an American hiker who apparently fell 150 meters (nearly 500 feet) has been found in the region known for the famed Matterhorn peak.
The cantonal, or regional, police department in the southern Valais region said Wednesday that the accident took place two days earlier near ski slopes above the town of Zermatt. Police say they have identified the man but declined to release his name or home, citing Swiss privacy laws.
The police statement said early indications suggested that the 52-year-old man was hiking alone on a path partially covered by snow and “for an undetermined reason” fell to his death along a steep slope.
Such accidents occur sporadically in Switzerland, a favored destination of hikers, skiers and other tourists.
32 ft per second squared, good speed
Six seconds. At impact you would be travelling about 100 mph.
The last step was a doozy. Too bad the guy wasn’t named Wile E. Coyote.
It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop.
Maximum speed of a human body due to wind resistance is about 120 mph; spread out your body to slow it down and you’ll do a little over 100 mph, approximately 150 feet per second. At that speed you’re a warm, soft, pink torpedo filled with guts. Hit the rocks naked and Jackson Pollock would be proud.
Same with airplanes, anybody can land a plane. Surviving the landing, that’s a different story.
How long does it take to fall 500 feet?!
It depends on how many times he bounced against the cliff wall on the way down.
How long does it take to fall 500 feet?
Just long enough.
As Chuck Yeager said to the emergency guy at the crash site who asked him: “What happened Sir”?
Yeager: “I don’t know, I just got here myself.?
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
(inhaaaaale)
aaaaaaaa!
About 1.5 breaths. 😉
Q. What should you be wearing as you begin a 500-foot fall?
A. Depends.
Ther exact amount of time that it takes!
Hold on! Don’t jump until I get my stopwatch!
I met an old French sky-diver who survived his parachutes not opening. His first chute deployed but didn’t open, and his back up chute wound itself around the first chute, so he wasn’t going full velocity when he hit the earth. Unbelievably, he landed in a field that had just had a plowing contest the previous day. When help finally arrived they were fully expecting to find him dead. They found him standing knee deep in earth and gathering his parachutes into a ball. He became an instant legend.
A friend of mine fell off the 11th floor of a building while working construction and lived. He was really messed up, though, and died young because of the damage done to his heart.
Locals call the act of falling off the Grand Canyon rim the “twelve second tour.”
Jethro had the same thought I did.
I remember this from when it happened. A para-rescueman slammed into the ground at about a 100mph. Face unrecognizable in the pic.
Picture:
http://nebula.wsimg.com/9208123e2e8369875350f62a58d8b6a4?AccessKeyId=D9266EF0E6AB473FD8B6&disposition=0&alloworigin=1
Story:
http://www.scottgearen.com/the-fall.html
He lived and went back to duty. He actually fell about 3500′.
Seem to remember he hit a haystack but that isn’t in the posted story.
Amazing.
Dear God. This brought back to my mind the sight of those poor misfortunate people jumping from the Twin Towers around 9.30 am,
9/11/01. Horrible. I’ll never forget.
For anyone interested in the math, the formula for time to fall a particular distance is
t = sqrt( 2d / g ), where d=distance and g=acceleration
Distance is given as 500 feet. Acceleration is terrestrial surface gravity, or 32 ft/sec². So:
t = sqrt ( 2*500 ft / 32 ft/sec²)
t = sqrt ( 1000 ft / 32 ft/sec²)
The feet cancel out, and so we get
t = sqrt ( 1000/32 sec²)
t = sqrt ( 31.25 sec²)
t = 5.59 sec
That’s assuming no air friction. A spread-eagle skydiver falls around 120 mph. Pull arms in and put lets together and speed goes up quite a bit, and pulled in with head or feet straight down terminal velocity is well over 200 mph. To get a really accurate estimate we’d have to know how floppy the hiker’s clothes were, whether he tumbled or not, and if not what his position was.
I’d say christy 944 got as close as you can get – about 6 seconds – without more info.
Oh, yeah, that square root means that there’s another mathematically correct answer: negative 5.59 seconds. But that would mean that he’d have been all squishy 6 seconds before he fell and that would have seriously changed his wind resistance and so his time to fall. (-:
s= 1/2 a t^2
Where s is the distance fallen
a is acceleration
and t is the time.
So your situation is:
500 = 1/2 (32) (t^2)
Solving for t gives 5.6 seconds.
s= 1/2 a t^2
Where s is the distance fallen
a is acceleration
and t is the time.
So your situation is:
500 = 1/2 (32) (t^2)
Solving for t gives 5.6 seconds.
Didn’t I read that the guy that jumped from 100,000 feet broke the sound barrier during his free fall?
Well, it’s not the fall that killed him. It was the sudden stop at the end. Just sayen.
Does Saudi Arabia have any 50 story buildings Obama can visit?
Depends if his were arms out, doing The Moochelle penis tuck, or The Barack with team written autobiography, multiple iterations of fake birth certificates in hand with a ticket to the Gay Rainbo Club.
We used to say back in the day, “Go away you goofy fruit — before you fly away.”
See the guy who dropped 32 stories in the air chute in the Transamerica in San Francisco?
Sang religious songs as they wheeled him out with a broken ankle.
got thrown off a scaffold while pulling electrical wire, in the rafters of a college gymnasium (about 50 – 60′) … concrete deck (floor wasn’t laid yet)
… believe me …. you got too much time to think … & it ain’t ‘happy thoughts’
The new flick “The Magnificent 7” had a good one about falling 5 stories… what was it.. ‘right now I’m OK’ was it? … hep me.
Do you know the last thing that went thru his mind?
His ass.
The faller was asked how he was doing and replied, “so far so good”.
Number one rule of mountain climbing — don’t ever do it alone.
@ Moe Tom, dittos dude. That was terrible.
How long does it take to fall 500 feet?
The rest of your life.