Someone falls from a certain height into open ocean. How far can that person fall and still survive?

Question

From that height, how long would it take to fall, and how fast would the person be falling at the moment they hit the water?

Answer 1

Alot of it depends upon the person, their angle of entry into the water (extremely important) and any extenuating circumstances that would or could be interfering with the force gravity is exerting in pulling the person down. A person can die from falling 5 feet into water, if the impact suddenly snaps their neck back hard enough to break it, although such cases are very rare. The article below lists some very interesting facts and/or examples (18,000 feet of freefall is too crazy to believe).

Answer 2

Myth Busters. You should go get a-hold of Myth Busters reruns they did a segment on falling People have survived incredible falls. There is historic documentation of a British airman jumping out of a Lancaster Bomber at 18,000 feet and living. so people can fall from great heights and live.

In your case I would not answer the question by referring to miracles that have happened. Instead i would find out what is the maximum speed of impact a human body can take and survive. (G force). I would then calculate the height required for a freely falling body to achieve this speed. I would ignore air resistance.

Answer 3

Well the person would accelerate at 9.81 m/s/s until they hit the water or until they hit terminal velocity. Terminal velocity is around 56 m/s.

I'm not sure how much force a human could survive on impact though.

Answer 4

Once the persons body reaches terminal velocity (about 125 miles per hour) hitting the water is like hitting concrete. Explaining terminal velocity is a little complicated, so I'll give you an expert:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_velocity

Answer 5

I have heard stories from reliable sources of oil workers leaping from the tops of burning oil platforms to escape being burned to death, and those are right around 120 feet. But I wouldn't count on a soft landing on anything over 130 feet regardless of whether or not you go feet first or not. People have fallen victim to compressed spines and broken backs from a LOT less.

Answer 6

9.8m/sec thats it, no matter from how high he jumps, provided he does not escape gravitational pull. Lastly water so dense even whenu jump from few feet above and with that kind of terminal velocity of 9.8 it will act like solid metal. So no question about surviving. Death is 100% certain.

Answer 7

i'm able to't use the escalator in maximum dept shops because they're too steep, too intense and the perimeters are too low. I continually sense dizzy and am confident i am going to tumble head over heels all the way down to the floor below. I also don't like the glass elevators they use in branch shops!