The Gory Details (Gross)

Gory Details #22: "Hope You Don't Bounce?"

Sometimes, and I know this must come as a shock, the people who make movies stretch the truth just a little. This can be little things, like Vin Disel not ripping the transmission out of every car he touched in "The Fast and The Furious" series or big things like John Travolta and Uma Thurman not doing the nasty when they had the chance in "Pulp Fiction." (O.K. so I just really wanted to see the Travolta/Thurman tango. Mmmm, suddenly I'm distracted.)

Anyway, one of the things that action flick writers have been butchering for decades is the issue of what happens to people as they fall. Whether its "sly" Stallone catching himself on a bungee cord in "Cliffhanger" or any character being hurt by falling ever in the above mentioned Fast and Furious movies, action heroes seem almost immune to the effects of gravity. This B.S. must stop. Let's look today at gravity, the human body and messes best cleaned up with a shovel and one of those big twisty straws.

Gravity is actually really weak. All matter in the universe exerts gravity, even you. If you were placed in an otherwise gravity free vacuum with the Titanic, eventually you would drift together. The bad news is, that with no more gravity than you and the Titanic exert, it could take you tens of thousands of years to travel even a few yards. Since the Earth is much bigger, it produces much more gravity. In fact, close to its surface, things just whistle along.

A falling body near the Earth's surface accelerates at a rate of 9.8 meters per second per second. That means that a body is moving almost 30 feet per second at the end of a one second fall. That's about twenty miles an hour. It has also traveled more than two stories straight down.

To understand how damaging a fall of that distance could be, imagine this; a large piece of pavement has been bungee corded onto a semi, which is then driven into you at twenty miles per hour. Broken nose? Sure. Broken arm? Sure. Lawsuit? Hell yes.

At two seconds and more than seventy feet of vertical drop, things are worse. By this time, the body is moving at 58 feet per second, almost forty miles per hour. So the semi roars toward you, you soil yourself and Bam! You get a sudden appreciation for how fatal falling is.

There are only two restrictions on the maximum speed of a falling object. The first is friction, the friction between the air and the faller's skin or clothes eventually stalls the acceleration at a point called "Terminal Velocity." Terminal velocity varies by air density and clothing but most skydivers are moving at around 80 m.p.h. when they pull the ripcord. In an extreme case, two total lunatics trying to set the world skydiving record, jumped from a helium balloon at more that 200,000 feet. In the extremely thin air at that altitude, they peaked out at almost 800 mile per hour. That's right ladies and gentlemen, all it takes to break the sound barrier wearing little more than a jumpsuit and a backpack is a ton of money, a half-gallon of testosterone and less sense than God gave a slug.

The other thing that slows fallers is the ground. At 80 m.p.h., a body would hit ground in less than five minutes if it came out of a plane at 30,000 feet.

Another misconception is that falling on an object, (flag pole, canopy etc.) will save you in a fall. I can't say it never happens but it is waaaaayy abused, especially in film. The basic problem is this; if a flag pole or awning is going to save your life, it has to absorb enough energy as you pass through to keep you from dying when you hit the ground without killing you in the process.

If it is too strong, you will die when you hit it. If it is too weak, it doesn't slow you down enough and you die anyway. Even if you did fall into the gap between these two the headline would probably read something like, "Local man breaks seven ribs on flagpole but survives concussion when landing on sidewalk. 'I ain't used to buildn's with stairs.' Said local Bud 'lame-o' Jenkins from his hospital bed"

Damage to the body is massive. Even a short fall may break a neck or cause a closed head injury.

Beyond twenty or thirty feet, falls are usually fatal. Bones break, or dislocate and internal organs tear as shock waves pass through them.

From higher heights, fall victims are collected with a shovel. The widespread trauma tears not just limb from limb or bone from bone but ruptures cell walls in mass, creating injuries that could be swum in more easily than sutured

Sometimes the bones themselves are so badly damaged by the fall that they don't hold the body together at all. Truly, a high fall will turn a person into a smatter of goo.

Also interesting is the fact that humans bounce like a ball if dropped from a height. Skydive enthusiast even wish each other luck by saying, "Hope you don't bounce."

Hope I don't bounce? There's no danger of that. I just hope I have my camcorder handy when they do. Oh, and my big twisty straw. Mmm. Lumpy and warm.

Now get out there and write.

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