They've busted half of the myth, but they totally overlooked how hard it would be to throw a mattress out of the hotel room and get it to land not only on the pool but close enough to be able to target it to land on it before it kills you...
The landing position is also all wrong. As someone that's done a lot of martial arts where they teach you how to fall, I've always been told to give yourself the maximum landing surface. Landing on your butt is the last thing you want to do because that's such a small surface area (comparatively speaking). I would hazard a guess that on your back without the mattress would be survivable
@@endersdragon34 what about the sudden deceleration of your brain into the back of your skull? Plus the nasty whiplash. I'm thinking the best option is to land on your feet in the water. You'd likely break bones in your legs, but I'd much rather have shattered legs than pelvis or spine.
I used to have a friend growing up who had a pool. We would get on his roof, 2 stories up and go diving off. Our dives weren't always done very well and we had a number of back flops and belly flops. They stung, but we were just fine. It's crazy that simply adding like 12 more feet, it would result in serious injuries. Because I can tell you, had his house been 3 stories, one of us would've been stupid enough to dive from that high.
@@ModeratelyAmused I'm going to venture a guess that as many two stories that you believe you've seen, the number is no doubt astronomically low compared to the number of ones you haven't seen? I think it would be fair to say that the construction designs for houses are rather diverse. Besides the different designs, you have other factors such as the house being constructed on land with different levels. And the pool isn't always level with the foundation of the house. It could be lower, it could be higher, with the pool being elevated. There are literally 2 many factors to list, that make your assumptions seem...... presumptuous.
@@ModeratelyAmused Not so sure I agree with the 5% stat, but lets say its correct. That comes out to about 7 million homes that are not of the cookie cutter variety. That's still quite a few homes. Either way, if you wanna question my memory, then by all means, it is your right to do so. It just seems to me that you have very little to go on, making that judgement call.
@@ModeratelyAmusedare you actually convinced that there’s only 8-10 floor plans in the entire US? Either you have never been here in your life or you’ve literally never left the house.
With all the stuff Micheal says and does in Burn Notice I'm pretty sure there would be plenty of material to do a whole Burn Notice special. I mean like a full length episode of the original show, a special like they used to do. Apologies if redundant, just trying to be clear.
Darren Taylor is real world proof that it’s possible to survive a 36 foot drop into 12 inches of water by using his iconic belly flop technique. 4.5 feet is more than enough to survive, but throwing the mattress into the water is a sure way to die.
@@jollygoodfellow3957 I mean, all you need is years of notice and the discipline to train and develop your body for an incredibly obscure skill set, and maybe you have a slim chance in this very specific scenario.
@@jasonw342 that is so statistically unlikely that I would buy a lottery ticket if I fell that far with no injuries. Most people who fall 35 feet onto concrete either are critically injured or die.
Thinking about it at first, it seemed totally plausible... but after the results, you know they make way more sense. If you "speed up" your "slowing down," you'll be in for a lot more pain.
I know I'll sound crazy, but this is exactly the kind of video that might make me rethink seatbelts. I don't know the answer, but do auto insurance companies pay out more to chronically injured people or to dead people(the families)?
@@Jack__________ When you're in a car crash, the seat belt does not prevent you from hitting the water just in front of your seat belt. There is no water, in fact. Water is the reason that there is a significant difference here. Air resistance is not going to make a significant difference, but what you hit and where certainly will. The seat belt means you will receive the impact on your chest, the area that exists to protect your internal organs, rather than on, say, your head.
@@Mythraen I understand your point. I can certainly imagine scenarios where a seatbelt would be a positive safety measure. However, I can also imagine scenarios where it is not… like when the belt is only across your lap making your waist a fulcrum- and forcing your head to accelerate the most going forward. Or even the shoulder strap holding you back but causing a whiplash of your head so severe that you die. I even saw a video recently where a person had rolled their van and was ejected from the driver’s side window… which actually saved him because the van rolled and smashed into a light pole right on the driver’s side of the windshield. (Obviously getting ejected through the windshield is the worst scenario though.) I survived a major accident without a seatbelt 25 years ago… I was riding in the middle of a bench seat of an F150 and the seatbelt wasn’t looped through so I didn’t have an option. My cousin (age 15 and driving before he got his permit) made some mistakes and drove straight into a telephone pole at 50 mph… and there were no skid marks- meaning he never hit the brakes. Thankfully the pole broke in two places and the impact was dead center so there was no twisting torque. The center of the truck was over the base of the pole when we got out meaning that the stopping distance was half the length of the truck. I put up my hands to block the incoming impact and luckily did not lock my elbows since that could have broken my arms badly. I kinda slid under the dashboard and my face did hit my hands and the dashboard… so I did end up with a broken nose. But all things considered, we all walked away barely scathed as my nose was the most serious injury- and it wasn’t even that bad- mostly just sore. Both my cousins were wearing their seatbelts and the driver that caused the accident had an airbag too ( that fucker lol ). The other cousin hit his head even with his shoulder strap but he was very tall. I’m saying I can see there are times when the belt is a benefit, but I also think back on that accident and when I try to figure out the actual physics of it, I don’t want “luck” to be a part of the answer. However, remembering that accident, I can’t help but to feel… “lucky.” (I just want to know the numbers on the times that the seatbelts did more harm than good. And compare that to when the numbers of only doing good.)
@@Jack__________ I'm not going to respond to all of that, but you should look at statistics, not anecdotes. Will there be exceptions? Of course. But where does the probability lie?
@@Jack__________ What you're talking about there with turning your waist into a fulcrum, into whatever you hit your head into. A couple points 1. If you would've hit it with your seatbelt on, you're going to hit it with your seatbelt off definitely. 2. That's what airbags are for. 3. That's why you wear your seatbelt is annoying sometimes when you pull too hard, so your face doesn't hit something.
Damn, I just started rewatching burn notice for the first time in Years last week and now I see a burn notice related myth busters episode? And it’s not like an old one. It came out 3 days ago. The algorithm is working hard
OMG SCIENCE CHANNEL YES. KEEP MYTHBUSTERS ALIVE FOREVER BY POSTING INDIVIDUAL MYTHS TO TH-cam! SOCIETY NEEDS THIS, I AM NOT EXAGGERATING. SINCE THE SHOW ENDED THERE HAS BEEN A VACUUM OF SCIENCE AND SKEPTICISM IN THE WORLD AND IF FOLKS CAN WATCH INDIVIDUAL MYTHS HERE ON TH-cam THAT WILL FILL THAT VOID
He was a professional diver and made sure to land at a angle to where he would torpedo into the water and slice through and travel so he would not hit the floor.
Even before the sensor was read, it was clear that falling on to the mattress was worse because it caused the dummy to stop almost immediately. Falling into the water caused less damage because the water allowed the dummy to slow down before impacting the bottom of the pool.
Agreed, I was thinking the mattress would slow down the plummet, not halt it in its tracks. When I saw the smack I went, "Welp, there goes that myth!"I wonder if there is something that is buoyant but not to that extent that would actually slow down a faller safely?
My neighbor had fallen off a three story building and landed on his feet. It shattered every bone in his body from his femurs down. He lived in a wheelchair for a couple of years. He regained his mobility and died from despair later in life.
I wish they had accelerometer data on the more realistic dummy. It definitely landed differently in a "water only" drop. Also, circus performers high dive into shallow water and survive. What if their techniques are used?
They actually DIVE, not splash down. Its a timing thing, they dive into the water and instantly curve upwards to the surface. Its no different than regular diving, just with less margin for error as the bottom of the pool is closer. You dont hurt yourself jumping hands first into water in a proper dive, meanwhile a bellyflop HURTS from the same height. One is stopping your movement right away, the other is MUCH more gradually slowing it so the impact is far less. If you used those techniques and could pull it off, absolutely you would be fine.
We were always told that in the event of a fire, we need to throw a mattress out the window before jumping out the window to safety And then now the advice is to forego the mattress because it takes too long and broken bones is better than burning alive
This episode always puzzled me because Buster is a stiff body and humans are squishy. You notice that the surgical dummy's water impact hit the bottom of the pool with less force than Buster. The surgical dummy does a better job as a human analog.
Before finishing it: I feel like you'd have a decently good chance of surviving a 35-foot fall, though you'd break your legs. Of course, this itself could be lethal in many situations, like falling into water. Mattress might help.
I wonder if the survivability of a person could be improved with training? There are quite a few people out there that do stunt diving where they jump from much higher into far less water.
Absolutely. People cliff dive at much greater heights. But the higher you get, the more technique is needed. Not to mention body types will vary the outcomes as well. Someone with more muscle density or body fat may protect the skeleton.
Don’t know if they would’ve covered it in the rest of the episode, but everything I’ve seen both on MythBusters and elsewhere suggests that the greater distance of impact absorption, and the greater surface area of impact absorption, means the less force on any particular spot. As a result, it would seem to me that Jumping in a seated position would be terrible. This is accidentally proven by the slightly different way in which both dummies were dropped. The original buster properly drops in a seated position, hits the water, and then hits the bottom of the pool. However, the synth dummy version isn’t in a perfectly seated position, and instead hits the water at a 45° angle. While the butt still hits first, there is greater surface area hitting the water as the back of the dummy also absorb some of the impact. What’s notable therefore, is that the synth Chubbys never hit the bottom of the pool. This suggests to me that while there may be danger of your head hitting the water and having additional injuries, that it might be beneficial to actually lay out, perhaps back first, to maximize your surface area when you hit the water. In other words, if you’re in the unenviable position of having to do this, falling spread eagle into the water might be your best bet. You’ll probably still die, and if you don’t you’ll probably sustain enough injuries that you won’t be able to get out of the water, but you might be slightly better off than what these tests show.
I have no dated to support my theory but if I was jumping in the shallow water I would go feed first and let my legs attempt to take some of the impact when I hit the bottom of the pool. I jump off this height all the time and if you have 9 or 10 ft of water it's perfectly fine.
"Darren Taylor, who uses the stage name Professor Splash, is currently the world record holder for shallow diving. In 2014 he set a world record when he dove 37.9 feet (11.5 meters) into about 12 inches (30 centimeters) of water. He likely hit the water at more than 32 miles (53 kilometers) per hour." Of course, this is a person trained in shallow water diving, and he's just slightly higher than the purported myth. AND Darren Taylor doesn't land on his glutes. I love the show Burn Notice, but this little stunt did take me out of the "could be real" situation.
I wish they had compared an alternative damage minimization strategy. Like the old throw some coins or stones to break the surface tension before you hit it. My only worry is hitting the water is better but hitting the bottom is then worse. But I'd like to know the actuality not just guess.
They did that as a separate myth where they dropped a hammer below buster. I’m not sure what season/episode, but I’m sure Google or the wiki can help you find it.
The breaking surface tension thing is a myth, because if you really think about it water always sticks to itself even when the surface apparently looks rough to us
What they failed to consider is surface tension. In the show the mattress is thrown into the water shortly before it is jumped on and that the mattress disrupted the surface tension. By them placing the mattress on the water and it sitting there for a while before the dummy lands on it, the surface tension is not the same. The surface tension factor i would think would have a significant impact on the results. Any thoughts?
One of their early myths basically tested just that, though in that episode it was about a construction worker falling off a bridge, throwing a hammer into the water ahead of him. Now, a hammer is obviously much smaller than a mattress, and they tested the hammer drop myth from a much greater height, but the hammer hitting first made no notable difference versus Buster falling on his own.
What about a foam mattress? I like the idea of dispersing the weight across the mattress to cushion the fall so you don’t break your butt on the floor of the pool but maybe the metal springs are doing more damage than a pure foam mattress like a tempurpedic.
It is more about the force of deceleration. The energy from your fall doesn't change depending on the surface you land on, just how much force is exerted when you stop. The longer the stop/slowdown, the less force you take at any one point. The composition of the mattress is immaterial.
I suspected almost immediately that the mattress was going to be worse. As the old saying goes: it's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end. The water, though bad, provides for a slower deceleration than the mattress. The mattress is only somewhat better than landing flat on a lawn. The results aren't counterintuitive at all, but expected.
The soul point of the mattress was to stop from plummeting into the bottom of the pool.. injuries are/were accepted as a likely result but dude regularly wrecks cars as a tactic so… this was all on par with being pulled off… injuries underplayed of course lol
I heard that was an old frat hazing stunt to sandwich freshman in mattress and toss them out buildings. Apparently if the sandwich got spun like a frisbee you'd usually be okay, but a nosedive proved fatal
The problem with a mattress is that it’s heavy and rough if you jumped on it without water it would still still hurt. Not only that but the mattresses steel frame would crumple on impact and the way that fall pads work is by crumpling around the person it conforms to the persons shape and goes along with the energy in other terms instead of slowing down the persons speed and absorbing the energy it brings it to a halt causing injuries if they were to test it out on memory foam there would be a different story Ps professor splash not only uses a pool but uses an air mattress below the pool and also since the bottom of the kiddie pool is also inflated it means professor splash is using 12inches of water and 2 airbags so it doesn’t count
I noticed that the dummies butt was the point of impact. That can be seen as the cause of a lot of the injuries, like the spine, because of the forces in play. I realize it would be exceedingly difficult to get the dummy to do it, but do any doctors have any opinion as to injuries if the body was as flat as possible? Some other comments said some people survived similar heights by doing a belly flop, which would be a completely different type of pain.
In 1987 i saw a guy at the fair jump off a 40 foot tower into a 2 foot pool and get up and wave to the crowd. Also on AGT a guy did it from 20 feet into a 18 inch pool ON TV.
I personally fell from a third-floor deck into a roll off dumpster with about 1' to 2' of material in it during the construction of an assisted living facility. After about an hour, I returned to work. I think the only myth here is the calibration of your dummy.
I'm the luckiest person in the world. When I was 20, I not only fell off the roof of a 3 story building, but also fell off of a 60 ft cliff. I walked away from both accidents with nothing worse than getting the wind knocked out of me. Landed on gravel, feet first when I fell off the building after hitting the wall twice on the way down. Landed on my back in sand when I fell off the cliff, but hit several bushes growing out of the cliff face as I fell. I was surprised to not be seriously injured both times, but after watching this I'm in shock knowing I should probably be dead. Ignorance is bliss I guess.
this kinda makes no sense unless you were passed out while you made the jump, a human has muscles, tendons & ligaments which protect it from injury and distribute shock but these "dummies" are just floppy dead things... this should be called "can an unconscious person survive being thrown out a third story window into a pool"
I always wondered what would happen if you jumped into a tarp or sheet floating on the water. I seems like it would decelerate you more quickly, but not quite as violently as a mattress would.
Yea, would not recommend going completely flacid when jumping into water. Too bad you cant test with muscles that can flex or use velocity reduction measures people could use when jumping into shallow water. I know ive jumped from 30ft into 4ft of water and came out of it just fine but I guess its something you need to learn, just like most stuntmen.
One of my faves. Not as most people would call 'cool becuase of explosions'. But cool in the way MB tacled quite a number of Hollywood getting it wrong, so to speak myths. And the, yeah you could dive at this height, but land on a mattress, or straight in with out the dive curve thing. no.
I wonder what the difference would be by holding onto the mattress while falling. More surface area equals slower falling speed equals less damage, perhaps?
Though it would require perfect technique and probably be next to impossible to pull off, maybe you could ride the mattress on the way down to slow your fall slightly, then twist off it to belly flop at the last minute to distribute your weight evenly and prevent hitting the bottom. Of course, it may not be possible to prevent the mattress from rolling during the fall, and it might even land on you when you hit the water...
Who is this orthopedic surgeon? He states a separation of the lumbar spine and sacrum would cause a “spinal cord injury”? The spinal cord ends around the level of L1 in the human spine, four levels higher than L5. While yes this fracture would cause a significant injury, this injury alone would not injury the spinal cord or cause complete paralysis. If this was the only damage to the spinal nerves (not spinal cord), then the victim would have some possible leg weakness (not complete paralysis) and likely disruption of normal urinary and bowel function. While I would argue that most doctors may not know that the spinal cord ends at L1… an orthopedic surgeon should definitely know the spine anatomy. Looking up Noah Weiss, he appears to be a sports medicine orthopedic and not a spine orthopedic surgeon, so maybe he forgot this bit of anatomy. Other possibility is that he said this because he wanted to simplify the injury for the audience. However, this injury alone would not cause paralysis of the legs. That being said, spinal cord injuries can occur without seeing obvious fractures or injury on X-rays. So this victim may indeed be paralyzed, but for other reasons, not the L5-Sacral injury.
I just watched a clip of some dude drop from a 3 story balcony, onto the ground, and then proceed to get up and run (and get away) from the Police chasing him lol.
I've jumped into water way higher than 35 feet. Of course, it was a lot deeper than 4 feet. If I hit the water in a sitting position, it would have broken my pelvis.
The reason why it fails because you're adding even more surface density to what you're impacting. Water and mattress has no where to go the more the impact
I wonder if it'll make a difference if the dummy was more spread out instead of a curled up. In the show they spread out their body instead of cannon balling
I'm studying to be a physicist in grad school, before I watch the experiment I do think it's going to break the fall a lot more Now that I've seen it, it's like the mattress was a hard surface. It had too much buoyancy and wouldn't give, it's like the water underneath the mattress was cement. They also had the dummy lying down when it fell. When I jumped in the pool as a kid, I would jump with my feet straight and hurt when it hit the bottom of the pool. I wonder if they had a smaller landing pad more like a pillow with a smaller area to jump on, that had more give in the water, if that would help. Idk it's just what I would wonder, it's not an educated guess just an idea to test. I think mattresses maybe just aren't that soft
Seriously? You're "not walking away" from 35' above water? People cliff dive from higher than that regularly... Heck the 'surgical training dummy' didn't even hit the bottom of the pool!
This seems completely wrong. High divers regularly dive from higher than that. I assume they occasionally make mistakes and land in the sitting position without such terrible consequences. Given that the second dummy didn't even hit the bottom, the shallowness of the pool is irrelevant.
I wonder if the dummy landed feet first onto the mattress if it would have been okay. Could have made it into a medium impact and still not hit bottom. Body has the ability to absorb a lot of the impact through the legs. It is counter intuitive to try to land on your butt as your legs are your natural suspension.
People have fallen from that height and have not even broken any bones. They should have tried feet first.The hitting the water Gs would be less, hitting the bottom more. Since you're designed to land on your feet, I think that would be safer.
I’m thinking it has something to do with psi. The mattress has a giant surface area compared to a butt. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so the force of the water pushing up and decelerating the dummy is likewise multiplied. Im not smart enough to do the math right now. Somebody out need me plz
I've hung/dropped from a third floor balcony and landed on my feet into grass and only thing I broke was my jaw and busted my chin wide open on my knee on impact. I also was on meth and running from cops so I don't recommend my METHod of testing this.
A couple of us had to show up the folks that were jumping off the second floor railing. They had shown up the folks jumping from the second floor on the other side of the railing.
The myth is obviously busted but they should have also tested the landing position. Everything I've ever heard says it better to land on you back with your arms stretched out to give yourself the maximum landing surface then on your butt. Would have been interesting to see if that would be survivable without the mattress.
I jumped 35 feet off of sunset cliffs "streetside", Ocean Beach CA, into about 5 foot water and came out with a cut on my foot. No exact measurements, but yeah. No easy feat., I could of died. Was a fun jump.
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They've busted half of the myth, but they totally overlooked how hard it would be to throw a mattress out of the hotel room and get it to land not only on the pool but close enough to be able to target it to land on it before it kills you...
I hope you're not saying tv shows aren't giving us all the realism they seem to be.
The landing position is also all wrong. As someone that's done a lot of martial arts where they teach you how to fall, I've always been told to give yourself the maximum landing surface. Landing on your butt is the last thing you want to do because that's such a small surface area (comparatively speaking). I would hazard a guess that on your back without the mattress would be survivable
This is a good point - I was thinking about the difficulty of pulling that off and it could have been a fun part of testing this myth.
@@endersdragon34 what about the sudden deceleration of your brain into the back of your skull? Plus the nasty whiplash.
I'm thinking the best option is to land on your feet in the water. You'd likely break bones in your legs, but I'd much rather have shattered legs than pelvis or spine.
@@endersdragon34 based on my personal experience with jumping from tees and second floor windows it's best to hit feet first with bent knees 😉
Burn Notice is one of my favorite shows. I remember this episode! Spoiler, Michael's client missed the mattress and busted his leg :/
Yea. It should've been Larry
I used to have a friend growing up who had a pool. We would get on his roof, 2 stories up and go diving off. Our dives weren't always done very well and we had a number of back flops and belly flops. They stung, but we were just fine. It's crazy that simply adding like 12 more feet, it would result in serious injuries. Because I can tell you, had his house been 3 stories, one of us would've been stupid enough to dive from that high.
I would’ve prolly jumped too ngl
@@ModeratelyAmused I'm going to venture a guess that as many two stories that you believe you've seen, the number is no doubt astronomically low compared to the number of ones you haven't seen? I think it would be fair to say that the construction designs for houses are rather diverse. Besides the different designs, you have other factors such as the house being constructed on land with different levels. And the pool isn't always level with the foundation of the house. It could be lower, it could be higher, with the pool being elevated. There are literally 2 many factors to list, that make your assumptions seem...... presumptuous.
@@ModeratelyAmused Not so sure I agree with the 5% stat, but lets say its correct. That comes out to about 7 million homes that are not of the cookie cutter variety. That's still quite a few homes. Either way, if you wanna question my memory, then by all means, it is your right to do so. It just seems to me that you have very little to go on, making that judgement call.
Landing on your ass like these dummy's were doing might have caused you injury.
@@ModeratelyAmusedare you actually convinced that there’s only 8-10 floor plans in the entire US? Either you have never been here in your life or you’ve literally never left the house.
burn notice: one of the best shows to ever exist
With all the stuff Micheal says and does in Burn Notice I'm pretty sure there would be plenty of material to do a whole Burn Notice special. I mean like a full length episode of the original show, a special like they used to do. Apologies if redundant, just trying to be clear.
Darren Taylor is real world proof that it’s possible to survive a 36 foot drop into 12 inches of water by using his iconic belly flop technique. 4.5 feet is more than enough to survive, but throwing the mattress into the water is a sure way to die.
Yep it's survivable but very unlikely for an average person.
@@jollygoodfellow3957 I mean, all you need is years of notice and the discipline to train and develop your body for an incredibly obscure skill set, and maybe you have a slim chance in this very specific scenario.
Anything is survivable if you're lucky enough
You can jump 35 feet onto concrete and not be injured...lol. Sore, sure, fatal? Not likely.
@@jasonw342 that is so statistically unlikely that I would buy a lottery ticket if I fell that far with no injuries. Most people who fall 35 feet onto concrete either are critically injured or die.
Thinking about it at first, it seemed totally plausible... but after the results, you know they make way more sense. If you "speed up" your "slowing down," you'll be in for a lot more pain.
I know I'll sound crazy, but this is exactly the kind of video that might make me rethink seatbelts. I don't know the answer, but do auto insurance companies pay out more to chronically injured people or to dead people(the families)?
@@Jack__________ When you're in a car crash, the seat belt does not prevent you from hitting the water just in front of your seat belt.
There is no water, in fact.
Water is the reason that there is a significant difference here. Air resistance is not going to make a significant difference, but what you hit and where certainly will.
The seat belt means you will receive the impact on your chest, the area that exists to protect your internal organs, rather than on, say, your head.
@@Mythraen I understand your point. I can certainly imagine scenarios where a seatbelt would be a positive safety measure. However, I can also imagine scenarios where it is not… like when the belt is only across your lap making your waist a fulcrum- and forcing your head to accelerate the most going forward. Or even the shoulder strap holding you back but causing a whiplash of your head so severe that you die. I even saw a video recently where a person had rolled their van and was ejected from the driver’s side window… which actually saved him because the van rolled and smashed into a light pole right on the driver’s side of the windshield. (Obviously getting ejected through the windshield is the worst scenario though.)
I survived a major accident without a seatbelt 25 years ago… I was riding in the middle of a bench seat of an F150 and the seatbelt wasn’t looped through so I didn’t have an option. My cousin (age 15 and driving before he got his permit) made some mistakes and drove straight into a telephone pole at 50 mph… and there were no skid marks- meaning he never hit the brakes. Thankfully the pole broke in two places and the impact was dead center so there was no twisting torque. The center of the truck was over the base of the pole when we got out meaning that the stopping distance was half the length of the truck.
I put up my hands to block the incoming impact and luckily did not lock my elbows since that could have broken my arms badly. I kinda slid under the dashboard and my face did hit my hands and the dashboard… so I did end up with a broken nose. But all things considered, we all walked away barely scathed as my nose was the most serious injury- and it wasn’t even that bad- mostly just sore. Both my cousins were wearing their seatbelts and the driver that caused the accident had an airbag too ( that fucker lol ). The other cousin hit his head even with his shoulder strap but he was very tall.
I’m saying I can see there are times when the belt is a benefit, but I also think back on that accident and when I try to figure out the actual physics of it, I don’t want “luck” to be a part of the answer.
However, remembering that accident, I can’t help but to feel… “lucky.”
(I just want to know the numbers on the times that the seatbelts did more harm than good. And compare that to when the numbers of only doing good.)
@@Jack__________ I'm not going to respond to all of that, but you should look at statistics, not anecdotes.
Will there be exceptions? Of course.
But where does the probability lie?
@@Jack__________ What you're talking about there with turning your waist into a fulcrum, into whatever you hit your head into. A couple points
1. If you would've hit it with your seatbelt on, you're going to hit it with your seatbelt off definitely.
2. That's what airbags are for.
3. That's why you wear your seatbelt is annoying sometimes when you pull too hard, so your face doesn't hit something.
More mythbusters please 👍
Dang Skippy!
Never with these 2 again
Damn, I just started rewatching burn notice for the first time in Years last week and now I see a burn notice related myth busters episode? And it’s not like an old one. It came out 3 days ago. The algorithm is working hard
The episode is old, the video is a reupload
OMG SCIENCE CHANNEL YES. KEEP MYTHBUSTERS ALIVE FOREVER BY POSTING INDIVIDUAL MYTHS TO TH-cam! SOCIETY NEEDS THIS, I AM NOT EXAGGERATING. SINCE THE SHOW ENDED THERE HAS BEEN A VACUUM OF SCIENCE AND SKEPTICISM IN THE WORLD AND IF FOLKS CAN WATCH INDIVIDUAL MYTHS HERE ON TH-cam THAT WILL FILL THAT VOID
As I watched this the worlds shallowest dive came to mind... He clearly survived a 4 story dive into a shallower pool unharmed.
Yeah landing on your back doesn't seem like the best position for this
He was a professional diver and made sure to land at a angle to where he would torpedo into the water and slice through and travel so he would not hit the floor.
Even before the sensor was read, it was clear that falling on to the mattress was worse because it caused the dummy to stop almost immediately. Falling into the water caused less damage because the water allowed the dummy to slow down before impacting the bottom of the pool.
Agreed, I was thinking the mattress would slow down the plummet, not halt it in its tracks. When I saw the smack I went, "Welp, there goes that myth!"I wonder if there is something that is buoyant but not to that extent that would actually slow down a faller safely?
In this episode I've learned the best thing is to avoid hotel mattresses dry or wet.
My neighbor had fallen off a three story building and landed on his feet. It shattered every bone in his body from his femurs down. He lived in a wheelchair for a couple of years. He regained his mobility and died from despair later in life.
I wish they had accelerometer data on the more realistic dummy. It definitely landed differently in a "water only" drop. Also, circus performers high dive into shallow water and survive. What if their techniques are used?
They actually DIVE, not splash down. Its a timing thing, they dive into the water and instantly curve upwards to the surface. Its no different than regular diving, just with less margin for error as the bottom of the pool is closer. You dont hurt yourself jumping hands first into water in a proper dive, meanwhile a bellyflop HURTS from the same height. One is stopping your movement right away, the other is MUCH more gradually slowing it so the impact is far less. If you used those techniques and could pull it off, absolutely you would be fine.
@@chrishubbard64think as you get higher up the hands first breaks the water allowing a the hands to take part of the impact
We were always told that in the event of a fire, we need to throw a mattress out the window before jumping out the window to safety
And then now the advice is to forego the mattress because it takes too long and broken bones is better than burning alive
You'd never want to land butt first into anything! 😆
Open book pelvic fractures are awful.
This episode always puzzled me because Buster is a stiff body and humans are squishy. You notice that the surgical dummy's water impact hit the bottom of the pool with less force than Buster. The surgical dummy does a better job as a human analog.
The simdaver landed much flatter.
Before finishing it: I feel like you'd have a decently good chance of surviving a 35-foot fall, though you'd break your legs. Of course, this itself could be lethal in many situations, like falling into water. Mattress might help.
That first drop on the mattress sounded brutal!
I wonder if the survivability of a person could be improved with training? There are quite a few people out there that do stunt diving where they jump from much higher into far less water.
Yes their dummies are dead weight which is not what real divers do.
Just not landing on your butt is a good start. You want to maximize surface area not limit it to one (relatively) small body part
Absolutely. People cliff dive at much greater heights. But the higher you get, the more technique is needed. Not to mention body types will vary the outcomes as well. Someone with more muscle density or body fat may protect the skeleton.
Don’t know if they would’ve covered it in the rest of the episode, but everything I’ve seen both on MythBusters and elsewhere suggests that the greater distance of impact absorption, and the greater surface area of impact absorption, means the less force on any particular spot. As a result, it would seem to me that Jumping in a seated position would be terrible. This is accidentally proven by the slightly different way in which both dummies were dropped. The original buster properly drops in a seated position, hits the water, and then hits the bottom of the pool. However, the synth dummy version isn’t in a perfectly seated position, and instead hits the water at a 45° angle. While the butt still hits first, there is greater surface area hitting the water as the back of the dummy also absorb some of the impact. What’s notable therefore, is that the synth Chubbys never hit the bottom of the pool.
This suggests to me that while there may be danger of your head hitting the water and having additional injuries, that it might be beneficial to actually lay out, perhaps back first, to maximize your surface area when you hit the water. In other words, if you’re in the unenviable position of having to do this, falling spread eagle into the water might be your best bet. You’ll probably still die, and if you don’t you’ll probably sustain enough injuries that you won’t be able to get out of the water, but you might be slightly better off than what these tests show.
belly flop is the way. the guy that jumps into a pool only a foot deep does it that way and is unhurt.
I have no dated to support my theory but if I was jumping in the shallow water I would go feed first and let my legs attempt to take some of the impact when I hit the bottom of the pool. I jump off this height all the time and if you have 9 or 10 ft of water it's perfectly fine.
"Darren Taylor, who uses the stage name Professor Splash, is currently the world record holder for shallow diving. In 2014 he set a world record when he dove 37.9 feet (11.5 meters) into about 12 inches (30 centimeters) of water. He likely hit the water at more than 32 miles (53 kilometers) per hour."
Of course, this is a person trained in shallow water diving, and he's just slightly higher than the purported myth. AND Darren Taylor doesn't land on his glutes. I love the show Burn Notice, but this little stunt did take me out of the "could be real" situation.
I wish they had compared an alternative damage minimization strategy. Like the old throw some coins or stones to break the surface tension before you hit it.
My only worry is hitting the water is better but hitting the bottom is then worse.
But I'd like to know the actuality not just guess.
They did that as a separate myth where they dropped a hammer below buster. I’m not sure what season/episode, but I’m sure Google or the wiki can help you find it.
The breaking surface tension thing is a myth, because if you really think about it water always sticks to itself even when the surface apparently looks rough to us
"Buster will drop butt first. But first,..." I love that, That's some satisfying word play
What they failed to consider is surface tension. In the show the mattress is thrown into the water shortly before it is jumped on and that the mattress disrupted the surface tension. By them placing the mattress on the water and it sitting there for a while before the dummy lands on it, the surface tension is not the same. The surface tension factor i would think would have a significant impact on the results. Any thoughts?
One of their early myths basically tested just that, though in that episode it was about a construction worker falling off a bridge, throwing a hammer into the water ahead of him.
Now, a hammer is obviously much smaller than a mattress, and they tested the hammer drop myth from a much greater height, but the hammer hitting first made no notable difference versus Buster falling on his own.
What about a foam mattress? I like the idea of dispersing the weight across the mattress to cushion the fall so you don’t break your butt on the floor of the pool but maybe the metal springs are doing more damage than a pure foam mattress like a tempurpedic.
It is more about the force of deceleration. The energy from your fall doesn't change depending on the surface you land on, just how much force is exerted when you stop. The longer the stop/slowdown, the less force you take at any one point. The composition of the mattress is immaterial.
you would need a bunch of foam blocks randomly in a pit. that has been done.
Of course the composition of the mattress matters! 🤦♂️
I loved Burn Notice.
burn notice is my favorite show! i never knew they did a episode on Micheals escape
God I miss this show so much.
Which one!? Burn Notice or Mythbusters!? I miss both!
I suspected almost immediately that the mattress was going to be worse. As the old saying goes: it's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end. The water, though bad, provides for a slower deceleration than the mattress. The mattress is only somewhat better than landing flat on a lawn. The results aren't counterintuitive at all, but expected.
yup i said at the start mattress is worse.
The soul point of the mattress was to stop from plummeting into the bottom of the pool.. injuries are/were accepted as a likely result but dude regularly wrecks cars as a tactic so… this was all on par with being pulled off… injuries underplayed of course lol
I wonder how much being able to brace for impact, or tensing the muscles would have on preventing serious injuries
What happens, when wrapped or rolled by the same mattress before jumping?
I heard that was an old frat hazing stunt to sandwich freshman in mattress and toss them out buildings. Apparently if the sandwich got spun like a frisbee you'd usually be okay, but a nosedive proved fatal
Did not expect this crossover
There is a guy that dives into a kiddie pool from higher than that. It's amazing to see!
The oral of the story: If you;'re stuck on a 3rd story balcony, and there's a pool outside....climb down the balconies.
What if you dropped yourself with the mattress at the same time? Have the mattress act as a shield the moment you hit the water?
The problem with a mattress is that it’s heavy and rough if you jumped on it without water it would still still hurt. Not only that but the mattresses steel frame would crumple on impact and the way that fall pads work is by crumpling around the person it conforms to the persons shape and goes along with the energy in other terms instead of slowing down the persons speed and absorbing the energy it brings it to a halt causing injuries if they were to test it out on memory foam there would be a different story
Ps professor splash not only uses a pool but uses an air mattress below the pool and also since the bottom of the kiddie pool is also inflated it means professor splash is using 12inches of water and 2 airbags so it doesn’t count
My name is Michael Weston And I use to be a spy ... Burn Notice I love that show.
Another great episode of Dexter
Nah Dexter sucked
I noticed that the dummies butt was the point of impact. That can be seen as the cause of a lot of the injuries, like the spine, because of the forces in play. I realize it would be exceedingly difficult to get the dummy to do it, but do any doctors have any opinion as to injuries if the body was as flat as possible? Some other comments said some people survived similar heights by doing a belly flop, which would be a completely different type of pain.
Feet first with toes pointed and 4.5' of water is enough for a 35' jump.
In 1987 i saw a guy at the fair jump off a 40 foot tower into a 2 foot pool and get up and wave to the crowd. Also on AGT a guy did it from 20 feet into a 18 inch pool ON TV.
I personally fell from a third-floor deck into a roll off dumpster with about 1' to 2' of material in it during the construction of an assisted living facility. After about an hour, I returned to work. I think the only myth here is the calibration of your dummy.
Military parachute training starts with jumps from towers.
The short tower that the beginners start with is 35 feet tall.
I'm the luckiest person in the world. When I was 20, I not only fell off the roof of a 3 story building, but also fell off of a 60 ft cliff. I walked away from both accidents with nothing worse than getting the wind knocked out of me. Landed on gravel, feet first when I fell off the building after hitting the wall twice on the way down. Landed on my back in sand when I fell off the cliff, but hit several bushes growing out of the cliff face as I fell. I was surprised to not be seriously injured both times, but after watching this I'm in shock knowing I should probably be dead. Ignorance is bliss I guess.
this content never disappoints
this kinda makes no sense unless you were passed out while you made the jump, a human has muscles, tendons & ligaments which protect it from injury and distribute shock but these "dummies" are just floppy dead things... this should be called "can an unconscious person survive being thrown out a third story window into a pool"
I always wondered what would happen if you jumped into a tarp or sheet floating on the water. I seems like it would decelerate you more quickly, but not quite as violently as a mattress would.
Quick deceleration will be the factor
Wow
Yea, would not recommend going completely flacid when jumping into water. Too bad you cant test with muscles that can flex or use velocity reduction measures people could use when jumping into shallow water. I know ive jumped from 30ft into 4ft of water and came out of it just fine but I guess its something you need to learn, just like most stuntmen.
Surgical dummies are $86 thousand dollars a piece.
My brother got pushed it of a second story window and luckily landed on the coach outside. He walked away with minor injures
One of my faves. Not as most people would call 'cool becuase of explosions'. But cool in the way MB tacled quite a number of Hollywood getting it wrong, so to speak myths. And the, yeah you could dive at this height, but land on a mattress, or straight in with out the dive curve thing. no.
....this episode is giving me cramps, and making my joints hurt...eesshh
I wonder what the difference would be by holding onto the mattress while falling. More surface area equals slower falling speed equals less damage, perhaps?
Though it would require perfect technique and probably be next to impossible to pull off, maybe you could ride the mattress on the way down to slow your fall slightly, then twist off it to belly flop at the last minute to distribute your weight evenly and prevent hitting the bottom.
Of course, it may not be possible to prevent the mattress from rolling during the fall, and it might even land on you when you hit the water...
Who is this orthopedic surgeon? He states a separation of the lumbar spine and sacrum would cause a “spinal cord injury”? The spinal cord ends around the level of L1 in the human spine, four levels higher than L5. While yes this fracture would cause a significant injury, this injury alone would not injury the spinal cord or cause complete paralysis. If this was the only damage to the spinal nerves (not spinal cord), then the victim would have some possible leg weakness (not complete paralysis) and likely disruption of normal urinary and bowel function.
While I would argue that most doctors may not know that the spinal cord ends at L1… an orthopedic surgeon should definitely know the spine anatomy.
Looking up Noah Weiss, he appears to be a sports medicine orthopedic and not a spine orthopedic surgeon, so maybe he forgot this bit of anatomy.
Other possibility is that he said this because he wanted to simplify the injury for the audience. However, this injury alone would not cause paralysis of the legs.
That being said, spinal cord injuries can occur without seeing obvious fractures or injury on X-rays. So this victim may indeed be paralyzed, but for other reasons, not the L5-Sacral injury.
Jamie is the type of guy to keep an actual cadaver shashed somewhere in the shop
I just watched a clip of some dude drop from a 3 story balcony, onto the ground, and then proceed to get up and run (and get away) from the Police chasing him lol.
Well, Charly García demolishes this myth since he jumped into a pool from a 9th floor without any protection in March 2000.
I've jumped into water way higher than 35 feet. Of course, it was a lot deeper than 4 feet. If I hit the water in a sitting position, it would have broken my pelvis.
absolutely horrifying to learn that a 35 foot dive, done poorly, can paralyze you
Lol I really injoy these videos 😀💯🎉
The reason why it fails because you're adding even more surface density to what you're impacting. Water and mattress has no where to go the more the impact
I wonder if it'll make a difference if the dummy was more spread out instead of a curled up. In the show they spread out their body instead of cannon balling
Episode #? Year? Back when science channel was top tier programming.
I have jumped 50ft into 8ft of water and 15ft into 4ft of water. Hit bottom both times, hurt both times, but I walked away no problem
A girl got pushed off a 60ft bridge into a river and lived. She was really injured but she survived
I'm studying to be a physicist in grad school, before I watch the experiment I do think it's going to break the fall a lot more
Now that I've seen it, it's like the mattress was a hard surface. It had too much buoyancy and wouldn't give, it's like the water underneath the mattress was cement. They also had the dummy lying down when it fell. When I jumped in the pool as a kid, I would jump with my feet straight and hurt when it hit the bottom of the pool.
I wonder if they had a smaller landing pad more like a pillow with a smaller area to jump on, that had more give in the water, if that would help. Idk it's just what I would wonder, it's not an educated guess just an idea to test. I think mattresses maybe just aren't that soft
Seriously? You're "not walking away" from 35' above water? People cliff dive from higher than that regularly... Heck the 'surgical training dummy' didn't even hit the bottom of the pool!
The writer who came up with the boat out of an airplane from Indiana Jones is chuckling to themselves somewhere about this one! 😂😂😂
The sitting up/ass first position is not optimal. Best would be flat with arms and legs straight out.
That sindaver is horrifying
Before I even watch this I've jumped off of a three-story balcony twice on grass ground... And I'm fine
This seems completely wrong. High divers regularly dive from higher than that. I assume they occasionally make mistakes and land in the sitting position without such terrible consequences. Given that the second dummy didn't even hit the bottom, the shallowness of the pool is irrelevant.
The size of that accelerometer is a dead giveaway that this is almost 20 years old. Today they live on chips a few mm across
I wonder if the dummy landed feet first onto the mattress if it would have been okay. Could have made it into a medium impact and still not hit bottom. Body has the ability to absorb a lot of the impact through the legs. It is counter intuitive to try to land on your butt as your legs are your natural suspension.
Stevo has done this and survived multiple times
the trick is to use both the mattress and boxspring
Water is not compressible. It would be close to the same as just tossing the mattress on the ground.
People have fallen from that height and have not even broken any bones. They should have tried feet first.The hitting the water Gs would be less, hitting the bottom more. Since you're designed to land on your feet, I think that would be safer.
Loved Burn Notice. I remember this episode. I'd love to see them test alof of the theories that Michael gives out.
Yup like when he makes a big deal of kneecapong his drug selling neighbor after drilling a way in from the side
Ive fallen 50+ feet three times. No water no mattress. Only once i did not walk away.
I’m thinking it has something to do with psi. The mattress has a giant surface area compared to a butt. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so the force of the water pushing up and decelerating the dummy is likewise multiplied. Im not smart enough to do the math right now. Somebody out need me plz
I miss this show.
So what about jumping WITH the mattress?
I've hung/dropped from a third floor balcony and landed on my feet into grass and only thing I broke was my jaw and busted my chin wide open on my knee on impact. I also was on meth and running from cops so I don't recommend my METHod of testing this.
Wouldn't there be less force if one landed flat on their back?
E.M.D.- Medical acronym
Definition: Even More Dead
I used to jump off the second floor roof of my apartment complex into the 4 ½' pool. We would land on the bottom of the pool on our feet.
A couple of us had to show up the folks that were jumping off the second floor railing. They had shown up the folks jumping from the second floor on the other side of the railing.
Burn Notice was great but many stunts werent real
The myth is obviously busted but they should have also tested the landing position. Everything I've ever heard says it better to land on you back with your arms stretched out to give yourself the maximum landing surface then on your butt. Would have been interesting to see if that would be survivable without the mattress.
Wouldn't a trauma surgeon be a better expert than orthopedic? I feel like they see things like this far more often.
What if you just WITH the mattress? And glide down into the pool on it
What if you jump WITH the mattress?
What about a foam mattress?
I miss myth Buster's
I mean that one belly flopped from higher into inches of water
When you said you were going to use a dummy ai thought you were going to use Adam
I jumped 35 feet off of sunset cliffs "streetside", Ocean Beach CA, into about 5 foot water and came out with a cut on my foot. No exact measurements, but yeah. No easy feat., I could of died. Was a fun jump.