Althouse: "I heard a big boom... The back window of the car just busted out — exploded. Then the guy jumped up and started screaming.... He was like, 'What happened?' And was like, 'You fell.' I was thinking, thank God, it probably helped that he had a fluffy jacket on."

October 14, 2021

"I heard a big boom... The back window of the car just busted out — exploded. Then the guy jumped up and started screaming.... He was like, 'What happened?' And was like, 'You fell.' I was thinking, thank God, it probably helped that he had a fluffy jacket on."

From "Man plunges nine stories from NJ high-rise, lands on BMW — and survives" (NY Post).

25 comments:

Owen said...: Gravity field is not as strong in New Jersey.; 10/14/21, 8:55 AM
mccullough said...: Great advertisement for BMW.; 10/14/21, 8:58 AM
Václav Patrik Šulik said...: His mask protected him.; 10/14/21, 9:02 AM
madAsHell said...: I wonder if that guy will buy me a Power Ball lottery ticket.; 10/14/21, 9:03 AM
rcocean said...: Yeah, the car roof saved him. It had some give in it, so the force of the impact disappated and he was left in the back seat. If he'd hit the pavement, no give. Dead.

It'll be interesting to see what injuries he has. And how they fix him up. Sidenote: Sometimes people survive suicide jumps off bridges. So it you're going to exit stage left, it'd probably be better to jump onto a hard surface.; 10/14/21, 9:07 AM
mikee said...: These social media advertising efforts are getting to be a bit extreme. Hey, BMW, congrats on getting such a "brand mention" in the Post!

I note in passing that at the bottom of the page the next article has a "garner" in its blurb. Was this a possible subliminal inducement to Althouse to pay more attention to this story?; 10/14/21, 9:08 AM
Temujin said...: Yeah...I saw the video of that one a few days ago and it was bizarre. The guy was so stunned. His arm was twisted out of the shoulder, and he was trying to get up and move with this arm-like thing hanging from his side. Not a fun puppy or kitten video.

330i BMW. Nice car. Clearly a safety test even the BMW engineers had not considered.; 10/14/21, 9:09 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Sometimes people survive suicide jumps off bridges...."

So much for the idea that everyone who jumps changes their mind during the fall. This guy stuck to wanting to die (as I read his remarks quoted in the article).; 10/14/21, 9:18 AM
Robert Marshall said...: I call for common-sense high-rise window control.; 10/14/21, 9:20 AM
Iman said...: “Oh, look… it’s raining menz!”; 10/14/21, 9:56 AM
Lucien said...: He never got over being cut from his high school diving team.; 10/14/21, 9:57 AM
What's emanating from your penumbra said...: But did she ask his preferred pronoun before telling her story?; 10/14/21, 10:00 AM
Mike of Snoqualmie said...: I wonder if that guy will buy me a Power Ball lottery ticket.

No. He used up his nine lives with that jump onto the BMW. All of his good luck is gone. All he has left is bad luck.; 10/14/21, 10:05 AM
Ice Nine said...: Any loser can be unable to cope with life - few losers can be unable to kill themselves over it by jumping off a 10-story building. The guy raises the moniker to a whole other level.; 10/14/21, 10:06 AM
Ice Nine said...: The fluffy jacket saved him! That's hilarious. It was all about the moonroof, babe.; 10/14/21, 10:15 AM
Big Mike said...: That picture of the Beemer taken from the driver’s side — the car still looks drivable! I think my next car should be a BMW 320i.

I wonder whether the car is still under warranty?; 10/14/21, 10:22 AM
Howard said...: It was the sunroof that saved him by allowing the roof to easily fold cushioning the sudden stop at the end. and he STUCK the LANDING!; 10/14/21, 11:53 AM
BUMBLE BEE said...: This one took me a while, but I finally remembered! A fellow I worked with shared his name.
Nine stories ain't shit!
https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=DS19780331.2.17&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN--------1; 10/14/21, 11:59 AM
Yancey Ward said...: If you want to die in a fall, swan dive it.; 10/14/21, 12:03 PM
Narayanan said...: This guy stuck to wanting to die (as I read his remarks quoted in the article).
----
he should have looked before leaping

need revise moms' advise to kids :

look left / right b4 Xing

look up/down b4 etc....; 10/14/21, 12:44 PM
Tom T. said...: That prick could have landed on a stroller. The lucky aspect of this jump is that he didn't kill anyone on the ground.; 10/14/21, 1:13 PM
PM said...: Maybe just an old Badger.
Jump up and get down!; 10/14/21, 1:27 PM
Maynard said...: Great advertisement for BMW.

Not when you see the repair bills. That's why I traded in my X3 last year.; 10/14/21, 2:28 PM
Quaestor said...: The photograph of the building in Jersey City this fellow fell or jumped from sent my mind reeling back to my 16th birthday when I received my first Nikon camera, an F2 Photomic with a 50mm f/1.4 lens. Sending in the registration card gave me a subscription to Nikon's user magazine called Nikon World, or something like that. Mostly it was a drool list of absolutely drop-dead fantastic Nikon lenses and accessories -- from astronomical telescope adapters to zone system exposure meters -- plus a few how-to articles that explained why you needed every one of the ten thousand doodads Nikon made for 35mm photography.

One of the most intriguing was the 35mm f/2.8 PC-Nikkor tilt-shift lens. Designed primarily for architectural photography, tilt-shift lenses are used to correct the perspective distortion that manifests itself in the illusion that a tall building is falling away from the photographer's point of view. The photo published on the NYPost site is a clear example of this distortion. Newspaper photographers are seldom called on for work requiring a tilt-shift lens, however, there are easy software fixes for digital images, in Photoshop it's called Perspective Warp. Somebody at the Post has too much work and too little time, or little training.; 10/14/21, 3:58 PM
Josephbleau said...: Another anecdotal refutation. vs:

"Abstract

Objectives To determine whether parachutes are effective in preventing major trauma related to gravitational challenge.

Design Systematic review of randomised controlled trials.

Data sources: Medline, Web of Science, Embase, and the Cochrane Library databases; appropriate internet sites and citation lists.

Study selection: Studies showing the effects of using a parachute during free fall.

Main outcome measure Death or major trauma, defined as an injury severity score > 15.

Results We were unable to identify any randomised controlled trials of parachute intervention.

Conclusions As with many interventions intended to prevent ill health, the effectiveness of parachutes has not been subjected to rigorous evaluation by using randomised controlled trials. Advocates of evidence based medicine have criticised the adoption of interventions evaluated by using only observational data. We think that everyone might benefit if the most radical protagonists of evidence based medicine organised and participated in a double blind, randomised, placebo controlled, crossover trial of the parachute."; 10/14/21, 9:07 PM