• Question: if you were in a falling elevator and you jumped in the air before you impacted the ground would you survive or not? And why?

    Asked by chlostyles11 to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 21 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Sam Horrell

      Sam Horrell answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      I’m afraid you wouldn’t. The urban legend is that if you jump just before the impact you would be floating so wouldn’t be crushed. Sadly that’s not how physics works. Imagine a lift falling at 100mph, even if you jump at the right time (almost impossible to time) you are still traveling at 100mph so will hit the ground at that speed. It’s going to hurt.

      Apparently the best thing to do is to lay flat on the groud so you spread out the force of the impact and no single part of your body takes all the impact.

      Either way there are plenty of safety measures in lifts if the cable snaps so hopefully you’ll never have to put it into practice.

    • Photo: David Briggs

      David Briggs answered on 23 Jun 2013:

      That’s a myth, I’m afraid. As Sam said, if you’re falling at 100mph, you’re falling at 100mph. Boom.

Comments