Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

bmj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 127 posts

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#51

Post by latchkey »

nostrademons wrote: post #40
stcredzero wrote: post #21

A coworker of mine once made this proposal. 5 of us would start a company. The company would buy key man insurance for everyone, then go on a company team building trip. On this trip, we'd all skydive, but one of the 5 parachutes would be non-functional...Profit! This coworker of mine soon after left the company by storming out of the meeting room and slamming the door, then took up playing online poker for a living.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine

That's awesome, thanks! So is this: https://tontine.com/

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#53

Post by Johnny555 »

oh_sigh wrote: post #8
vamos_davai wrote: post #7

Would you indicate this is a satirical article? Half the time I was looking for jump height or understanding if adding parachutes to commercial aircraft that suddenly experienced breakage such as a missile would improve passenger survival.

I've done over 900 jumps so I can fill you in, no references ATM because I'm on my phone. If you jump with a parachute, you will see chance of death go from 0% at zero feet, to approximately 100% at 35 feet. From there, it will remain near 100% until you reach about 600 feet, which is about the minimum distance it takes a parachute to open. Above 1000 feet and chance of death floors out near 0%

35 ft is a little pessimistic, the LD50 is 10.5m (~35 ft) for those with head and chest injuries, and 22.4m (~75 ft) for those without. Which is surprisingly far.

In patients with head and chest injuries, a 50% mortality rate was estimated to occur at falls from 10.5m, compared to 22.4m in those without injuries to head or chest

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22860503

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#54

Post by steve_musk »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #47
ericye16 wrote: post #26

The current title "Parachutes prevent death when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial" is exactly the opposite of the article's conclusion: "Parachute use did not significantly reduce death or major injury (0% for parachute v 0% for control; P>0.9)." Nor is it the title of the actual article.

Why do people use parachutes then? I felt like I'd like to have a parachute jump experience one day, do you mean that would equal jumping without a parachute (guaranteed death)?

It’s not guaranteed, there’s numerous cases where someone’s parachute malfunctions and they land with only broken bones and bruises.

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#55

Post by lallysingh »

ericye16 wrote: post #26

The current title "Parachutes prevent death when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial" is exactly the opposite of the article's conclusion: "Parachute use did not significantly reduce death or major injury (0% for parachute v 0% for control; P>0.9)." Nor is it the title of the actual article.

The current title serves the point of the article quite well.

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#57

Post by felipemnoa »

txcwpalpha wrote: post #38
vamos_davai wrote: post #7

Would you indicate this is a satirical article? Half the time I was looking for jump height or understanding if adding parachutes to commercial aircraft that suddenly experienced breakage such as a missile would improve passenger survival.

The fact that this isn't immediately tagged as satirical and requires actually reading the article and fully understanding the context (rather than just reading the headline and making a quick assumption) is pretty much the entire point of the "study" and the authors of it. Marking it as satirical would sabotage the purpose.

Yeah, tried reading the summary and then the first few comments and I was still confused about what the heck they were talking about.

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#58

Post by pitaj »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #47
ericye16 wrote: post #26

The current title "Parachutes prevent death when jumping from aircraft: randomized controlled trial" is exactly the opposite of the article's conclusion: "Parachute use did not significantly reduce death or major injury (0% for parachute v 0% for control; P>0.9)." Nor is it the title of the actual article.

Why do people use parachutes then? I felt like I'd like to have a parachute jump experience one day, do you mean that would equal jumping without a parachute (guaranteed death)?

The trial is essentially a joke. Here's some more context:

> participants included in the study were on aircraft at significantly lower altitude (mean of 0.6 m for participants v mean of 9146 m for non-participants; PSo essentially they had people jump about 2 feet from an airplane sitting at rest. Of course there were no injuries, and that was the point. Few people will participate in a trial in which the control group could die, and such a trial would be highly unethical.

Re: Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma when jumping from aircraft

#59

Post by twiceaday »

porpoisely wrote: post #49
nostrademons wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tontine

Anyone else get acquainted with tontine from the simpsons? I watched that episode as a kid and still remember it to this day.

http://www.simpsonsworld.com/video/320768579741
Post reply on HN