7 ms·
"Jesus Christ!" is my only reaction. This guy survived a sequence of catastrophes, any one of which could have killed him: fire in a plane, failed ejection and
by bmitc 4y ago
"Jesus Christ!" is my only reaction. This guy survived a sequence of catastrophes, any one of which could have killed him: fire in a plane, failed ejection and being ripped out of the plane, parachute not deploying and hitting water, and being in open ocean for a few hours.
I do wonder how in the world he survived hitting the water. Is it just that he hit the jackpot in terms of his entry angle, body position, clothing or boots, and/or likely hitting the water at a crest or something where the surface tension was broken up a bit?
- sharadov 4y agoWhat is insane is that after falling in the water he was still conscious and had the presence of mind to cut the parachute chords. How do you retain all your bearings after multiple things going wrong and just not give up? Testament to his fight to live ( am sure he's unique in that respect).
- cm42 4y agoConstant training, even/especially in bad weather, and constantly preparing for specific tasks like this. "Amateurs practice till they get it right; professionals practice till they can't get it wrong."
- codegeek 4y agoCan I steal this quote.
- cm42 4y agoIt's free!
- bmitc 4y agoIs that your quote or did you get it from somewhere? It’s really good.
- cm42 4y agoIt's not mine, and I'm not certain of the origin, but I think I saw the words "musicians" and "theater" in the Google preview when I checked the wording. I've only seen it a handful of times in the wild - notably, a flight school wall - and every so often to close out blog entries on High-Speed, Low-Drag™ topics in (i.e.) aviation, search and rescue, emergency medicine, etc. There's a few clever "practice" ones too that I can't seem to recall, other than: "Oops, guess that's why they call it practicing medicine!"
- cm42 4y agoMeanwhile, on the internet: meh, Wikipedia has a table with bigger numbers.
- ars 4y agoRe: surface tension, see my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33348619 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33348619
- bmitc 4y agoThanks for the clarification. That makes sense, and I suppose I was just regurgitating one of those things you hear without thinking about it.