Then there is this guy.
192.9134 feet.
But, maybe he doesn’t get style points, but he smashed the record for a dive into water.
“Jump now,” said the voice in Kevin Hines’s head. “And I did. I was compelled to die.”
Hines leaped over a rail on the Golden Gate Bridge in September of 2000 and began a freefall that would reach 75 miles per hour on impact. (Editor’s note: Since 1937 approximately 1,800 people have ended their lives by jumping from this iconic bridge. Hines is one of only 35 people who have survived.) The moment his fingers left the railing, he felt instant regret.
“I thought it was too late, I said to myself, ‘What have I done, I don’t want to die‘,” says Hines, now 38. “I realized I made the greatest mistake of my life.”
Hines fell about 240 feet in just four seconds. He crashed feet first into the waters below, crushing spinal vertebrae and breaking an ankle. But he survived.
Now, Hines travels the world to speak about suicide prevention and mental health, telling his story to help others stay alive.
Those guys are nuts! Everyone of them are nuts!
What is the world record for a belly flop?
The trick is to keep your knees bent
YOLO
I have heard that before about people who survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. As soon as they start down they regret their decision.
Kids they think their invincible.
Absent anything causing lift or drag, you will hit terminal velocity in about 40 feet. Nothing really matters beyond that as you won’t fall faster just because you fall further, you’ll just have more time to anticipate your crushing death when you make your sudden stop on impact.
Well, when PARTS of you stop. Brain, heart, all the organs go a bit after your harder bits like bone and skull stop, doing internal impact damage. That’s something the increasingly ridiculous NFL helmet crowd doesn’t get, Nerf the outside as you will, you can’t stop the brain from hitting the INSIDE on your skull, which is where the REAL damage is.
But falling four stories will be enough to split you like a melon anyway. Shins rammed throgh knees, femurs torn throgh hips, vertibrae crushed like cracker stacks is fun, but pales beside internsl fluid pressures bursting your belly so intestines spew across the siddewalk and brains jet throush both old and new openings in your skull. Kind of depends how you hit, most folks go head down if they pass out which at least ensures they won’t be left as living structural wreckage, bowels running out everywhere as they beg someone to put them out of their misery because they are paralyzed from the impact and have no agency in their own life any more. While the fall should be lethal, a fall from height is rarely vertical and they may hit railings, balconies, awnings, etc., causing them to slow and pinwheel so they can’t control what’s crushed or how well. Punctured lungs are good too, you hit something with your chest and a rib or two pierce a lung, causing your pleural cavity to fill with air, blood, or both, which collapses one lung and shoves everything, windpipe included, so far over that the other lung can’t take it and fails too from the glorious pneumohemothorax you’ve given yourself.
Or you bust something in your heart sac so it fills with blood, causing a tanponade that puts so much hydraulic pressure against your heart that it can’t beat any more.
Lotsa interesting ways to die in a fall. You wanna die, get the Jab. Its more “suddenly”, less messy, and the government might pay for your coffin that you’re not too disfigured to have open at your funeral like it would be if you jumped…
Almost bought it today SNS. Had enough time while spinning out all Speed Racer style to read your post.
Didn’t have my life flash before my eyes. Was too busy rolling them in exasperation.
He tried to out high dive both Fearless Freep and Yosemite Sam. What a maroon! I’d say that’s worth at least a partial Darwin Award.
We visited Fort Baker 20 years ago on the Sausalito end of the bridge, and drove out on a pier into San Francisco Bay. There was a guy sitting there with a huge stationary video camera with the big reels filming the bridge. I asked him what he was filming and he said he was just wanting good film of the bridge.
Truth was that he was sitting there filming all the suicides that summer so he could release a documentary movie. He picked three suicides and investigated the background on why they committed suicide, interviewing family and friends and telling their story.
The haunting movie is called The Bridge.
My sister was traveling in Europe maybe 10 years ago with friends. They watched some locals jump off a bridge, about 80 feet. One of their group reeeaaally wanted to do it. So he did. And has permanent leg injuries, he did not enter the water properly. Just not worth it.
Huh … broke my record by 0.0004 ft.
I lost a good friend back in his mid to late 20’s in the late 70’s who jumped off of the the Monroe Street bridge into Spokane River in downtown Spokane. He had a lot of drug problems which he could’ve overcome but he chose suicide instead. I miss Jerry, he was a good guy but very misguided and lost because of all the damned illegal drugs that he did. No one needs to kill themselves, it’s a waste of a God given life that can be overcome by putting our faith into God and not succumbing to the guilt and shame of whatever our problems may be.
SNS
AT 12:44 AM:
Thanks for that graphic description.
Excuse me while I go puke.
Burrcer X
AT 12:54 AM
Yeah, what is it about roundabouts that people think they need to zip through on 2 wheels? Wife got clobbered in one last summer when a woman in the outside lane decided she wanted to be in the inside lane (where my wife was). Have had about 1/2 dozen near-misses since then, and witnessed at least that many.
Geoff, I was a Spokane City Firefighter back in the day. Having to go down to people’s park and fish the bodies out was always a grim task. Many were jumpers from the bridges. Damn sad.
Tony R AT 11:43 AM
SNS
AT 12:44 AM:
“Thanks for that graphic description.
Excuse me while I go puke.”
…sorry, but there’s a point here. And I haven’t even scratched the surface.
…you should see a flail chest for example, when someone falls or gets hit in such a way as to break an entire section of ribs on both sides so there’s a section of chest that works counter to the rest of the chest with every agonal breath risking death, but you can’t stop breathing…
WARNING: VERY GRAPHIC. EXACTLY WHAT I DESCRIBE ABOVE.
https://youtu.be/5QiQj8cBsAA
…The point is that folks thinking about deviling themselves should pause a moment to think that they may not be successful, that there ARE worse things than death, and that once they wreck their body they will lack the agency to do anything but drool and smell their own uncontrollable shit as they lie in bed developing bedsores to the bone…
So far Jackass Joe holds the record for taking a dive…