4 ms·

Definitely a true statement, but reports are saying he was already unconscious as he fell, so some open questions remain

Simon_O_Rourke 1y ago
Not that I doubt the reports, but how could anyone possibly make that call?
- catlikesshrimp 1y ago
  Yes. A pathologist can know if there was a catasthropic event like the natural rupture of an artery (e.g. stroke, heart attack) In vivo events evolve differently than post mortem ones, e.g. strangling a dead body shows differently than strangling a person to death. More recently, he might have been wearing a vital signal monitor that kept logs. Nowadays probably the latter.
- diggan 1y ago
  Someone so famous and regularly doing spectacular things surely have a bunch of sensors attached to them that reports a bunch of metrics about their physiological state.
ngruhn 1y ago
Well if "unconscious" happens to you in a restaurant you don't fall out of the sky.
- 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
  The final result is often similar while driving. Or walking down a flight of stairs, at least for oneself.
  - baobabKoodaa 1y ago
    No it's not. In both examples you are very likely to survive. This is different than the ~0% chance of survival Felix had in the air.
    - 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
      Tens of thousands die falling on stairs every year. You don't have to fall out of the sky to die. Just last year a good friend of mine had to bury her sister because she fell while exiting her car. You are more likely to survive than in small aviation crashes but most people (probably Felix included) spend way more time on that than flying. As a motorcyclist I'm surely not well of either when I suddenly fall unconscious. There are many activities where you really should not pass out while doing them, but they don't make for interesting headlines.
      - achierius 1y ago
        "Many people die from X" is different than "you will most likely die if you X". Most people who pass out in vehicles probably survive. Say we ignore the cases where you're on a side street, stuck in traffic, going at slow speeds, etc. (and just end up idling in the road with people honking/routing around you) -- so just consider the deadliest case, going at speed on the highway. While there aren't statistics for this particular scenario, we can look at the numbers for multi-car collisions in general, as that's near to the worst thing that could happen if you did just stop managing your car while at speed (gliding into the median is much less likely to be fatal): https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/809438 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/.... One line in the report suggests this should be broadly comparable to what we're thinking of: "In about 40 percent of fatal single vehicle rollovers and 57 percent of multi- vehicle rollovers, investigating officers reported that no crash avoidance maneuvers preceded the crash". Even still: the fatality rate is <10%! Compare to >80% if you pass out while doing underwater cave diving.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

Simon_O_Rourke 1y ago

Not that I doubt the reports, but how could anyone possibly make that call?

catlikesshrimp 1y ago
Yes. A pathologist can know if there was a catasthropic event like the natural rupture of an artery (e.g. stroke, heart attack) In vivo events evolve differently than post mortem ones, e.g. strangling a dead body shows differently than strangling a person to death. More recently, he might have been wearing a vital signal monitor that kept logs. Nowadays probably the latter.
diggan 1y ago
Someone so famous and regularly doing spectacular things surely have a bunch of sensors attached to them that reports a bunch of metrics about their physiological state.

ngruhn 1y ago

Well if "unconscious" happens to you in a restaurant you don't fall out of the sky.

0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
The final result is often similar while driving. Or walking down a flight of stairs, at least for oneself.
- baobabKoodaa 1y ago
  No it's not. In both examples you are very likely to survive. This is different than the ~0% chance of survival Felix had in the air.
  - 0x000xca0xfe 1y ago
    Tens of thousands die falling on stairs every year. You don't have to fall out of the sky to die. Just last year a good friend of mine had to bury her sister because she fell while exiting her car. You are more likely to survive than in small aviation crashes but most people (probably Felix included) spend way more time on that than flying. As a motorcyclist I'm surely not well of either when I suddenly fall unconscious. There are many activities where you really should not pass out while doing them, but they don't make for interesting headlines.
    - achierius 1y ago
      "Many people die from X" is different than "you will most likely die if you X". Most people who pass out in vehicles probably survive. Say we ignore the cases where you're on a side street, stuck in traffic, going at slow speeds, etc. (and just end up idling in the road with people honking/routing around you) -- so just consider the deadliest case, going at speed on the highway. While there aren't statistics for this particular scenario, we can look at the numbers for multi-car collisions in general, as that's near to the worst thing that could happen if you did just stop managing your car while at speed (gliding into the median is much less likely to be fatal): https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/809438 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/ViewPublication/.... One line in the report suggests this should be broadly comparable to what we're thinking of: "In about 40 percent of fatal single vehicle rollovers and 57 percent of multi- vehicle rollovers, investigating officers reported that no crash avoidance maneuvers preceded the crash". Even still: the fatality rate is <10%! Compare to >80% if you pass out while doing underwater cave diving.
deleted 1y ago
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