For those who've seen "Ghost Ship", could anything like the carnage in the opening scene ever actually occur?

Question

It's not so hard to believe that a single errant cable could take out an entire dance floor of people, the part I think is strange is how they're all still standing for a moment or two afterwards before falling in half. Is that even possible in such a death?

(No, that's not a spoiler, as that's the -OPENING- scene)

And yes, I know it's just a movie and so even if it's not realistic, it served its purpose in setting the tone of the film. That's fine by me, I only really want to know if the standing up part is possible.

Answer 1

I did see the movie and Myth Busters did an experiment to see if you could slice a person in half with a tension wire. They used a pig carcass because the skin is similar to people's. Long story short they could not get the pig carcass to split into and no the people wouldn't stand there like that for a few seconds, they would fall. You can visit the myth buster site on the Discovery channel site for further information on the experiment.

Answer 2

without having seen the movie.......

I write on maritime safety issues......a 3/8 inch steel cable will have a 'breaking strength' of something like 15,000 pounds. That is a very conservative rating; it will actually take 2 or three times that load to part.

So now we have something 3/8th of an inch thick whipping across a room with maybe 30 TONS of force behind it? At this point it's more like a phaser beam from the Enterprise....

Bet your bippy it will cut someone in half. These types of accidents happen all the time in ships and construction .
Now will it hit just right to sever the top half and leave the legs a second or two to figure out they're dead and fall to the ground?

Possible.......more likely the body will be severed and thrown in pieces, but possible I suppose.....

Answer 3

I dont think so O.o lol i think if that did happen they would fall right away cuz of the force of the cable, but i wouldnt know lol