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Actually, it's all in the terminal velocity. He (or she) never exceeds the same speed he would from 10ft up. His weight-to-surface-area ratio is roughly the same as a human skydiver using a reserve chute. He'd easily survive, especially if he grabbed the end of a branch at the end.

As Woody once said, "it's falling... with style!".

That's like, 6 times the air time of a typical skydive, and people still pay big bucks to do that over and over...

I dunno, if he really, really wanted to skydive, went to his doctor and his doctor said it should be okay, I don't think there is anything wrong with that. If he thought the reward was worth the risk (which he did research) more power to him. Hell, he could seize walking up a flight of stairs or leaning on railing admiring a view and fall to his death. Sure, in this case, it didn't work out, but I admire him for trying.

But on the other hand he made the internet's most boring judgment call: "X should not have done this thing that I never would have seen if X hadn't done it."

Most people know not to skydive at all with a medical condition; hence, most people don't do this; hence, very few videos exist of people doing this; hence, when someone does this and it goes bad, it will be interesting enough to make the sift.

I look forward to seeing billpayers carefully measured comments on fail-compilation videos.

Wow- he had a seizure disorder and he skydived anyway. You were right billpayer.

dumb

"(Christopher's) treating specialist wrote a letter specifically saying he was fit for skydiving," the Post quoted O'Neill as saying. "Obviously he wasn't. That was the end of his skydiving career."
Jones said he could not become a pilot because of his condition, but that he thought it had improved enough so that he could skydive.

"I'd been seizure-free for four years," the Post quoted him as saying. "I've always wanted to have the feeling of flight, so I just thought, considering I can't fly a plane due to my condition, I thought I'd give it a go."

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This was probably his first time. I had my first seizure at age 31 without any prior warning signs. Sometimes all it takes for the first one is the right set of sensory inputs to set the first one off. If he actually did have a known seizure condition then yeah - dumb - even if on medication.

Even though I'm on medication that controls the seizures very effectively, there are certain things I will now never do by choice; skydiving, scuba diving and flying a plane come to mind. There's no way to know if those particular things might push me past the limits my meds are known to control.

Isn't there a little barometric device that automatically deploys your chute if you reach a certain altitude? Might not be standard issue. Losing consciousness, for all sort of reasons, can't be all that uncommon while skydiving.

As for why, I dunno. Some epileptics have seizures very, very rarely (like once every few years), and the medication works pretty well. I have epileptic friends who legally drive. You do need a doctor to say it's cool, though.

Of course, he may not even have epilepsy. Might be seizing for some other reason (like skydiving adrenaline awesomeness/mortal terror overload).

I don't know anythign about Emma Watson or "he for she" or whatever so I'm not going to comment on that.

But jesus rollerblading christ.... are you seriously comparing the unintended consequences of consensual sex to the violation of someones privacy?

I honestly can't believe what I'm reading.

I would never say that if you don't want a kid, don't have sex. I will absolutely say that if you don't want a kid, practice safe sex.

But it's a biological fact that, with the best will in the world from both parties, children can result from intercourse. Please tell me this isn't news to you.

One is an unalterable fact, like gravity. The other results from someones deliberate actions.

So yeah, if you can go skydiving, accept the fact that if everything goes wrong and you hit the ground, you will get injured.
But don't tell me not to go skydiving in case some asshole cuts my parachute.

I give up. Continue telling this young woman how to live her life and what she should do in the privacy of her own home with her partner.

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If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.

I think it's mostly about adrenaline & dopamine highs . It's the same reason some people still manage to "enjoy" rollercoasters or skydiving and the like despite basically being frightened shitless by them.

All depends where your threshold for fear lies. Up to a point your physiology rewards you for what it interprets as taking a worthwhile risk, past that point it punishes you with an unpleasant response. e.g. you might get a good feeling from driving fairly fast, but if you push too far that good feeling turns to blood chilling terror.

The key is that everyone is tuned differently, some people get stressed out walking to the shops, others have to jump off buildings to get any sort of buzz. And naturally further to that we all interpret the level of risk differently in different situations. There appears to be quite the split between how people react to intense physical and cerebral stimuli.

Personally I don't really like being shit up by films like in the above, but then when I feel the back end sliding on a motorbike or drop a light aircraft into a stall I usually end up giggling like a little girl. (within reason)

As I understand it It's an evolutionary thing, we need some people who thrive on risk and go exploring and others to stay alive and raise the kids & naturally all of this is taken wildly out of context by our modern life styles. End result: some people watch scary films to feel alive and others have to race powerboats.

I'm sure there are other more emotional/metaphysical reasons too like our inherent fascinations with mortality, cruelty, paranormal etc. (and anything else we don't relate to in everyday life). But the fear "high" is definitely a big factor I think.

I have a really hard time believing this.

In the entire history of air flight, millions and millions of miles have been logged and not once has an airliner, helicopter, blimp or glider ever hit or been hit by a meteorite. I would think the odds would be astronomically higher that an aircraft would be hit than a single skydiver who just happened to have his GoPro on.

Not saying it's impossible, it just feels highly, highly, highly unlikely.