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Newsweek has a fascinating article up about Alcides Moreno, an Ecuadorian native who survived a 500-foot fall off of a Manhattan building. Most people don’t survive a 4-story fall. It’s a great article that I encourage you to read. But I was interested in summing up the physics and the lessons of surviving such a fall, based on the details of the story.

How To Survive A 500-Foot Fall:

  1. Find a way to increase the air drag on your body. In Moreno’s case, he clung to his window-washer’s platform as he fell. The flat plank increased his surface area and could have slowed his descent somewhat. Anything you can do to increase your surface area and slow you down is a plus. Also,
  2. Find something… anything… to cushion your fall. The platform also helped protect Moreno’s body from the full impact of the fall. In addition, Moreno landed on a pile of cables. This couldn’t have felt good, but it was better than concrete.
  3. Try to hit several things on the way down. So long as you don’t impale yourself or hit any vital areas like your head, a series of impacts is preferable to one giant impact at terminal velocity. Each time you hit or graze something on your way down, you could be slowing your decent slightly. Car safety equipment works this way… several measured impacts instead of one giant thud against the dashboard.
  4. Try to have your extremities take the brunt of the impact. Again, protect your head, spine and vital organs by sacrificing anything else on your body.
  5. The best position to land: like you’re about to sit on a chair, knees slightly bent, with the balls of your feet hitting first. Heels down, straight legs only drives bones up into your body cavity and treats your spine like a javelin.
  6. Stay loose. This also protects your spine. Experts have said before that the reason so many drunk drivers survive auto crashes is because they’re intoxicated, and thus keep their muscles loose. They don’t tense up on impact.
  7. Try rolling. To better absorb the impact.