I’ve often read that if you jump off the Golden Gate Bridge, you will accelerate to the point where hitting the water will be like hitting concrete. But my little brain keeps saying, “Yeah, but it’s WATER!” Could you jump off a bridge like the Golden Gate and contort your body in such a way that you’d survive? –Paul, Ann Arbor
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Of course not, numbskull. Your friend is right. Skydivers in free fall routinely reach terminal velocity, i.e., the speed at which air resistance and weight balance out and acceleration stops, which often exceeds 120 mph. During a typical plunge they may drop 10,000 feet in 60 seconds, remaining conscious throughout. (The free-fall speed record, incidentally, is 614 mph, set in 1960 by Joseph Kittinger, who stepped out of a balloon gondola into the exceedingly thin air at 103,000 feet.) Nonetheless the belief persists that anyone leaping or falling from a great height blacks out, has the breath sucked out of them, etc. Fact is, some pass out, but not all. We know this because–you knew we’d get around to your question eventually, Paul–people have in fact survived a leap off the Golden Gate Bridge, and staying alert is one reason they did.
Walking away from something like that is rare. The Golden Gate Bridge is said to be the most popular suicide location in the world–at least 1,200 people had jumped as of 2003, of whom fewer than 20 survived. A more typical outcome was that of a stuntman calling himself Kid Courage, who jumped off the bridge in 1980 trying to set a free-fall record. He landed flat on his back and was dead when pulled from the water with massive internal injuries.
U.S. Army air force sergeant Alan Magee fell 20,000 feet from an exploding B-17 in 1943 and crashed through the skylight of a French train station. Though his arm was shattered, he lived too. (A lesson emerges: Aim for the skylight.)
