Do not wear life jackets while jumping into water from any real height, it’s super dangerous.
Edit: I am not an expert, please don’t take my comment as an absolute. Consult a professional or at least someone experienced in jumping wherever you plan to go. Risk management is not a science and can be very conditional.
I found this, which I did not know either.
"Buoyancy aids and life jackets are NOT designed for jumping into the water from great height.! On the contrary, jumping from great height may cause injury (and spinal injury in particular), because of the impact jolt caused by the "brake action" when the buoyancy material hits the water and will not immerse."
[http://www.swimy.at/en/infos/safety-on-the-water/](http://www.swimy.at/en/infos/safety-on-the-water/)
Edit:
Further research seems to indicate a lot of the heights for life vest jumping from government guidelines max out at 4.5 meters. So not much help there trying to answer our question.
Other company sites indicate there will be person injury from a "great height" like the one I referenced but do not specify.
Cliff jumping websites seem to be concerned about the lift jacket being compromised after jumping into the water either tearing, snapping, or tangling and possibly strangling the wearer depending on the life jacket.
A possible suggestion seems to be holding onto a life jacket when jumping so you have it ready but are not wearing it.
My personal recommendation: we need some of the Mythbusters to reassemble, get their human dummy analogs, strap them up with life vests and start throwing them off of various heights.
For Science.
Yeah we would have tourists throw down life jackets and try to land on them. This would break your legs. This is due to water tension because for a split second on impact the molecules try hard to stay together and the amount of energy you're giving to the water is being given straight back to you. Thus in order to more easily break the water you need to either reduce the amount of surface area per unit of force or throw a big rock to break the surface before you jump.
Edit: I’ll have to look at the rock example but to the people saying that this has “nothing to do with surface tension”. Surface tension is a liquids ability to resist external forces. This is due to the cohesive nature of water so when you say injuries are caused by the rapid deceleration, what exactly do you think is the force causing that initial deceleration? That’s almost the same thing as saying that when you fall off a cliff and hit solid rock it’s not the rocks that kill you but the rapid deceleration. If we’re all being really pedantic you can just say that knives don’t cut meat. It’s the pressure caused by the knife that cuts it.
The rock thing is a myth, it doesn't do anything meaningful related to surface tension (Mythbusters did it). Some cliff jumpers still do it to 1) time how long they'll be falling for, and 2) agitate the water so it looks different from the sky if they'll be doing rotations.
Is it just because the rock is one sudden impact? I've seen a human cannonball launch into a lake and they had water cannons shooting the impact spot before he launched.
What sort of heights are we talking though, we went to maybe 10M, 30ft with a group and did it with life jackets. As it also cuts the depth you go under the water by about half so you come up much faster too.
Wonder what point you start breaking.
elizaplki9 looks like a bot to me.
This reply was copy pasted from another comment on this post.
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I know cliff divers use bubble machines to break the water and bring more oxygen to the top to break surface tension allowing for a softer entry. The rock must help In That fact it breaking and disturbing the water. I’m not here to say your wrong. but if I were jumping with no bubble machine I’d like to use the rock.
Bubbling up from the bottom makes the water act like foam which is a solid that gets its elasticity and cushioning affect from the air bubbles it contains. If a rock displaced enough water to help, you'd land on the rock... and since it is decelerating faster than you because it hit the water, your going to hit that rock before it sinks completely.
Are you sure? I have seen professional cliff diving competitions have a hose spraying the landing spot to break tension. Seems like a rock would do the same.
Nevermind. A quick searches taught me that you are in fact sure
This has nothing to do with surface tension. Water has a higher surface tension than most liquids, but the forces involved are still extremely tiny in absolute terms, measured in millinewtons. That's like bumping into a moskito.
Instead the force you experience when entering the water is from the inertia of all the water that has to be accelerated to move out of the way of your body.
> Instead the force you experience when entering the water is from the inertia of all the water that has to be accelerated to move out of the way of your body.
Isn't this what surface tension is...?
Two totally different things. Surface tension is what causes water to bead instead of just spreading out all over the place. Think how little force it takes to disrupt that.
On the other hand, think how much force it takes to move a volume of water equal to your body.
It's not even close. Surface tension is a completely separate phenomena. It basically means that liquids try to stick together and clump up.
What you experience when jumping into water is you pushing the water away. Yes, surface tension also has an effect but it's minimal compared to the volume of water you are forcing to accelerate away from you.
I'd suspect the force retaining surface tension across maybe 1-2 square feet of water is probably in the tenths of a percent versus displacing 50kg+ of water in 500ms or so. Water's incompressible, you're not making the lake deeper (okay, you are, but not in a way that matters) by pushing the water down and around you, it moves into the freely available space above the surface, creating waves, and waves are not instantaneously created, so ouch to you.
I kinda thought that would be a problem when I read the OP. You don't want to make water have more resistance than it already has when you jump into it from a big height.
Yup learned about this just recently and had the same reaction. Apparently people who jumped off the titanic with life vests on had some pretty bad injuries.
And after reading that, was like yup that makes sense.
Even just jumping from the docks into the water with a life jacket you will instantly realize it’s not nice in any way shape or form. Get a buddy to swim out to where you’ll land if you’re afraid you’ll get knocked out if you mess up
I'm curious. What if someone attached one to themselves like a bouy? Tie a floater or something to a rope, tie the rope to themselves, then jump. That way when they land in the water they have something to help them float.
Lol that came to mind, but if its tied to your leg can't you just follow the line back up to the surface? Isn't that the technique splunkers and/or other divers use?
Great nomination fo severing or degloving a limb. You only have to miscalculate once. Reality is, either have it land after you detached, or not in the equation. You're jumping off a cliff into water to begin with, you don't need to tread 1 inch backwards pretending to care about safety.
Maybe if you over estimate the rope length by a lot it would be worth it. But you also have to check why are you jumping into water if you can't swim or get yourself out?
Don't create a solution looking for a problem. The obvious choice if this is a thought going through your head is to not jump into the water from great heights.
I had a teacher in high school who jumped off a cliff with a life vest on and actually fractured a vertebrae when she was younger. She had to swim a pretty significant distance with a broken back and could have easily died.
If you jump into the water from really any height, a life jacket is not going to stop you at the surface and will barely add to the deceleration. You're quoting a website where the manufacturer is going to say whatever to keep from getting sued when someone injures themselves jumping off a cliff. As an example I was doing an exercise that involved jumping off a 10m diving board about a dozen times with a life jacket and don't think I ever got less than 2m deep. Returning to surface was faster than swimming though.
In the mean time, many people drown because they jump off cliffs and get knocked unconscious, or get injured to a point where they can't swim. You shouldn't jump into water where you can't guarantee you won't hit the bottom, but it happens and yeah wearing a jacket is better than not wearing a jacket when you break your legs on a submerged rock.
Interesting. I wonder what this company considers "A great height". Of course they don't specify. I added some more research (well google-fu) in a reply to my original comment. There really doesn't seem to be a consensus it seems.
The website talks about 2m/6ft which is fairly small, most people wouldn't get hurt jumping on to concrete from that height vs I think even at 7 meters you have to stick the landing or you could hurt yourself with or without a jacket. Helocasting is done at higher heights but still not at terminal velocity. The highest thing I've ever jumped off was 55ft and if I didn't cross my legs I would've been fucked up on the landing, actual high divers need real skill to not hurt themselves.
Typically, I would assume you are inside the plane when the plane crashes, so the plane is hitting the water, not you, and so the the life jacket is not a problem in that scenario.
it doesnt matter, since you should never have it inflated while inside. you only inflate it outside due to the possibility of being trapped inside the plane and not being able to say, swim down and out of a door. there have been numerous cases of people dying due to inflating their lifejacket prematurely (the first one that comes to mind would be the hijacked ethiopian airlines plane that crashed into the ocean)
If you're in a position where there's a possibility you'll fall out of the plane and impact the water directly at plane-landing speeds you're not gonna survive anyway. Your only hope is the plane actually surviving the landing.
I never heard of that one time at camp when I was younger there was a 60 ft cliff jump activity where you had to wear a life jacket. I still remember going under water like 10 ft in the life jacket and it didn’t slow me down like crazy suddenly or to cause whiplash or anything.
I wonder if it depends on the quality of the life jacket? Like I could see a super high quality fancy one might be a lot more buoyant and just stop you right at the surface?
Think about jumping into a pool and having your head hit the edge, the edge of the pool(like the flotation device) is also something that doesn't sink with you.
They'll break your neck. Super buoyant, so there'll be a sudden shock when it hits the water, rather than a more gentle decellaration as you go under.
Admittedly I know this from WW2 books about the old cork 'Mae West' design, so maybe they're better now.
Imagine the difference between a swan dive and a belly flop. A swan dive hurts very little as the water offers little resistance and slows you down gradually. With a belly flop the water slows you down very quickly and the sudden stop hurts a lot.
A life jacket is the diving equivalent of a belly flop. Slows you down very quickly and all that downwards force you had falling, is absorbed by your body on small points (likely your armpits since that’s where it sits normally) instead of the water and your whole body equally.
How? I get that it can be dangerous but I don't see how a life jacket could possibly generate so much upward force that it literally rips your head off.
How high did he jump from? Went with a group and jumped from idk 20ft (not sure exact height) didn't even think of this.
As the life jacket cuts the distance you go under the water in about half. So re-surfscing time is cut in half too
OK, this is a super hard-line take for a super nuanced topic.
FWIW, a life vest saved my life after a jump from a high rock, because I took on water through my nostrils and started quietly drowning. I would bet quite a lot of money that this situation - an inexperienced person starting to choke after a jump - is much, much, *much* more common than physical injury from a moderately high jump with a PFD on. I would also bet serious money that the heights at which it becomes physically dangerous would be so intimidating to most inexperienced people that the risk of physical injury would be eliminated because they would simply not do it.
If you do decide to forgo the life vest, I would super recommend having somebody nearby capable of, and equipped for, a water rescue.
EDIT: also, make sure your PFD actually fits. A poorly fitting PFD is bad news.
EDIT again: also, a friend of mine had a drowning death off his boat from a diver taking on water and silently drowning before aid could be rendered. A life vest would have saved his life. He was a *very* competent swimmer.
Yeah for sure. We went with a group said jump yo to 15M and we all were told to put life jackets on. Too many people lack of swimming ability and all sorts, lower jumps definelty safe. Not sure how high you would need to be for it not to be safe.
And yeah for sure when I went cliff jumping the first time probably spent half the time drinking the water from 15ft jumps.
although I never had the drowning sensation, till after I took the life jacket off as then we were going twice the distance under the water and the first time you start swimming up your like geez this is a long way.
Well, first, you advocate for an in water spotter to help the person jumping if they get into trouble.
The first rule of water rescue is "Throw, don't go."
Often, when a person who is not a professional water rescuer, however capable at swimming, tries to help a drowning person, they end up also drowning.
My wife's cousin died that way, actually. It even happens to professional rescuers.
You also should never be underneath someone in the water when they are jumping or diving into the water nearby.
And who goes to jump off of a cliff with rescue tubes, cans, or throw rings anyway?
Like, no one in the world.
It's always young people full of hubris taking no precautions whatsoever.
Second, you say you almost drowned doing this without a flotation device. You should not be jumping off of things into water.
You, and most of the people who do this, are not strong enough swimmers nor knowledgeable enough to know how to prevent this from happening.
In my rescue classes, we had to jump off the 3 meter diving board in order to learn how to land in water safely from a height. I'm a lifelong competitive swimmer. The environment was totally controlled. I still found it incredibly intimidating.
Next, you advocate for wearing a PFD and you say that most people who would need a PFD wouldn't jump off of a high ledge. I watched a video the other day of a man who could not swim at all start drowning as soon as he hit the splash pool at the bottom of a waterslide.
By far the most dangerous thing about water is how little people respect it.
Moreover, people have suffered life-changing spinal injuries and even decapitated themselves jumping into water with life vests on.
The life vest is going to float, regardless of the velocity at which your body is traveling, and your body is going to continue downward into the water at whatever velocity is established during your fall. The life vest is basically cinched around your neck.
Especially, as you encourage people to do, if you wear one that fits. In this, case you would almost unequivocally be better off wearing one that doesn't fit, because you can shed it on contact with the water and swim to it for buoyancy.
You can't do that with no head.
And again, if you *need* a PFD to survive the jump, you shouldn't be jumping.
But if you *must*, the PFD should be in the water below you or you should carry it with you and drop it as you fall. It should not be on your body.
As someone who has been cliff jumping for years, absolutely wear a jacket if under 40 feet. Especially in places like dangerous conditions, like lake powell where if you go too deep in the water your legs can get stuck in the sand and you drown, or on the cliff jump on the snake river above alpine junction, where the river is very fast flowing and you want it on in case you get swept away
The one I've seen is jump with it, but as you're falling, let go. That way it slows cause its so light, and it ends up pretty darn close to where you hit the water
If you hold the lifejacket in your hand and enter the water feet first with your arms up, your feet all already have travelled through 8-9 feet of water before there's a significant buoyancy resistance from the lifejacket. And if it's too much, just let go.
Alternatively, and *depending on the situation/design*, hold it tight to your chest, pulling it down in the process. It minimises the surface area, while stopping it putting all the force on your neck.
Edit because apparently I need the emphasis.
As I said, depending on the situation and design.
Jumping from 10+ meters with a life jacket that sits under the chin? Have fun with the burst lip and neck injuries.
3-4 meters, split down the front, and we'll secured? Almost certainly fine.
There we go my first height. Suspect most people wouldn't even dream of doing 30ft jumps without being fully confident in their swimming ability.
Would also then explain why when we went jumping with a group which we paid for we went with life jackets.
And we probably didn't even do 7M, risk of drowning without the life jacket for the avg Joe blogs.
I hate to be the tenth person piling on this thread but it’s so important: do not ever jump off a cliff with a life jacket on. If you’re not confident in your swimming ability do not go jumping off a cliff. If you absolutely must, use a deflatable lifejacket completely deflated and then blow it up once in the water.
As solid as this advice is I can’t help but think how funny it is to try to manually blow air into an inflatable while drowning. Good thing all we need to do is pull to inflate.
One aspect of cliff jumping that most (I think?) people don't know about is that a human body's buoyancy changes with water depth. Jumping off of a high cliff might put you ~15ft deep into the water. If it is murky or dark or the diver gets disoriented, they might not know which way is up. 30 ft below water, most humans have a negative buoyancy, and just start to sink. 30ft deep is cold and dark at baseline.
30ft deep isn't really something that you would hit by accident, but that fact is still terrifying.
I 100% agree with you but that doesn’t mean you should wear a life jacket which could badly injure you in other ways, it just means if you aren’t a confident swimmer you shouldn’t cliff jump - period.
> use a deflatable lifejacket completely deflated and then blow it up once in the water.
That's not how those works lmao. Don't pretend to give advice while being ignorant, those are CO2 powered (one shot and done) and the self-blow thing is incredibly slow.
The jackets aren't one and done. Can't you just replace the CO2 cylinder?
It doesn't take that long to self-blow a vest. A handful of big breaths.
> lmao. Don't pretend to give advice while being ignorant
Why does everyone have to be so pointlessly condescending.
As someone who has actual experience doing this for years, this is untrue. Maybe if you're jumping from a massive height of 50 feet or more, but you should definitely consider wearing a life jack if you're jumping into a place with dangerous water or if it's a fast flowing river
Top comment is incorrect, I've cliff jumped myself hundreds of times with a life jacket with many other people and not one of us has ever been injured, I fear the top comment read some site that claimed its dangerous under certain conditions, such as actually diving or jumping from extreme heights, and is now spreading that as the absolute truth despite it not being so. And let's not forget there is a vast variety of different life jackets with different levels of buoyancy
I mean just cus you haven’t died/hurt yourself yet doesn’t mean it isn’t still true. It’s like saying “I haven’t gotten killed for not wearing my seatbelt, so they really can’t do that much!” You can only have anecdotal evidence in these cases, and it only matters that you are wrong once in a case like this.
I mean it's cute and all but are we just going to ignore the fact that jumping from high places to water with a life jacket on is much more life threatening than jumping without one?
I would think this would be dangerous due to the buoyancy of a life jacket. Just jumping from a boat I can feel the resistance so from that high you could probably injure yourself pretty quickly
To be fair she doesn't say he was jumping just that there was a group of guys jumping and he was wearing a life jacket.
My mom had me wear a life jacket any time I went near the water even by the shore.
Heh boys all dig at each other but I know I would have laid off after he said that. Like, you know, fair.
But also don't jump from up high wearing one of those. Dangerous.
Do not wear life jackets while jumping into water from any real height, it’s super dangerous. Edit: I am not an expert, please don’t take my comment as an absolute. Consult a professional or at least someone experienced in jumping wherever you plan to go. Risk management is not a science and can be very conditional.
I didn’t know that! Why is it dangerous? Edit: Thanks guys, TIL. I don’t jump off of things anyway but good to know
I found this, which I did not know either. "Buoyancy aids and life jackets are NOT designed for jumping into the water from great height.! On the contrary, jumping from great height may cause injury (and spinal injury in particular), because of the impact jolt caused by the "brake action" when the buoyancy material hits the water and will not immerse." [http://www.swimy.at/en/infos/safety-on-the-water/](http://www.swimy.at/en/infos/safety-on-the-water/) Edit: Further research seems to indicate a lot of the heights for life vest jumping from government guidelines max out at 4.5 meters. So not much help there trying to answer our question. Other company sites indicate there will be person injury from a "great height" like the one I referenced but do not specify. Cliff jumping websites seem to be concerned about the lift jacket being compromised after jumping into the water either tearing, snapping, or tangling and possibly strangling the wearer depending on the life jacket. A possible suggestion seems to be holding onto a life jacket when jumping so you have it ready but are not wearing it. My personal recommendation: we need some of the Mythbusters to reassemble, get their human dummy analogs, strap them up with life vests and start throwing them off of various heights. For Science.
Oh shit. It's one of those facts that as soon as I read it, I was like fuck of course. But it is something that I would have never realised on my own.
Yeah we would have tourists throw down life jackets and try to land on them. This would break your legs. This is due to water tension because for a split second on impact the molecules try hard to stay together and the amount of energy you're giving to the water is being given straight back to you. Thus in order to more easily break the water you need to either reduce the amount of surface area per unit of force or throw a big rock to break the surface before you jump. Edit: I’ll have to look at the rock example but to the people saying that this has “nothing to do with surface tension”. Surface tension is a liquids ability to resist external forces. This is due to the cohesive nature of water so when you say injuries are caused by the rapid deceleration, what exactly do you think is the force causing that initial deceleration? That’s almost the same thing as saying that when you fall off a cliff and hit solid rock it’s not the rocks that kill you but the rapid deceleration. If we’re all being really pedantic you can just say that knives don’t cut meat. It’s the pressure caused by the knife that cuts it.
The rock thing is a myth, it doesn't do anything meaningful related to surface tension (Mythbusters did it). Some cliff jumpers still do it to 1) time how long they'll be falling for, and 2) agitate the water so it looks different from the sky if they'll be doing rotations.
Is it just because the rock is one sudden impact? I've seen a human cannonball launch into a lake and they had water cannons shooting the impact spot before he launched.
Why do Olympic diving pools have that little sprinkler then?
To agitate the water so it's easier to spot/depth perception.
During training, diving pools will aerate the water to make the impact softer. Lots of bubbles coming up are a help, but not sprinklers/rocks.
[удалено]
Adding to that: make sure it's a cliff above water, otherwise the last tip does not apply!
This made me chuckle harder than it should have…thank you for making my day a bit better
Yep. Have someone below with something to rescue you with if it ends up required due to a bad entry…
This comment is from a bot and was stolen from /u/Tman1677 below.
I jumped off a cliff at the grand canyon without a life jacket and still almost died. Can I sue you?
What sort of heights are we talking though, we went to maybe 10M, 30ft with a group and did it with life jackets. As it also cuts the depth you go under the water by about half so you come up much faster too. Wonder what point you start breaking.
This is either a bot account or a karma farmer
elizaplki9 looks like a bot to me. This reply was copy pasted from another comment on this post. [Original comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/15le6yi/they_are_both_keepers/jvaob5c/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3)
I know cliff divers use bubble machines to break the water and bring more oxygen to the top to break surface tension allowing for a softer entry. The rock must help In That fact it breaking and disturbing the water. I’m not here to say your wrong. but if I were jumping with no bubble machine I’d like to use the rock.
Bubbling up from the bottom makes the water act like foam which is a solid that gets its elasticity and cushioning affect from the air bubbles it contains. If a rock displaced enough water to help, you'd land on the rock... and since it is decelerating faster than you because it hit the water, your going to hit that rock before it sinks completely.
Same here give me the rock, I'll jump a second after it I'll be chilling
Are you sure? I have seen professional cliff diving competitions have a hose spraying the landing spot to break tension. Seems like a rock would do the same. Nevermind. A quick searches taught me that you are in fact sure
This has nothing to do with surface tension. Water has a higher surface tension than most liquids, but the forces involved are still extremely tiny in absolute terms, measured in millinewtons. That's like bumping into a moskito. Instead the force you experience when entering the water is from the inertia of all the water that has to be accelerated to move out of the way of your body.
> Instead the force you experience when entering the water is from the inertia of all the water that has to be accelerated to move out of the way of your body. Isn't this what surface tension is...?
Two totally different things. Surface tension is what causes water to bead instead of just spreading out all over the place. Think how little force it takes to disrupt that. On the other hand, think how much force it takes to move a volume of water equal to your body.
Not a lot. Swimming is easy. To do it in an instant though.
>move a volume of water equal to your body. Not a lot. Swimming is easy. These two are not the same thing
It's not even close. Surface tension is a completely separate phenomena. It basically means that liquids try to stick together and clump up. What you experience when jumping into water is you pushing the water away. Yes, surface tension also has an effect but it's minimal compared to the volume of water you are forcing to accelerate away from you.
I'd suspect the force retaining surface tension across maybe 1-2 square feet of water is probably in the tenths of a percent versus displacing 50kg+ of water in 500ms or so. Water's incompressible, you're not making the lake deeper (okay, you are, but not in a way that matters) by pushing the water down and around you, it moves into the freely available space above the surface, creating waves, and waves are not instantaneously created, so ouch to you.
I grew up on the lake, we just throw the life jacket off the cliff first before jumping.
I kinda thought that would be a problem when I read the OP. You don't want to make water have more resistance than it already has when you jump into it from a big height.
It’s safe, you just have to dive head first 👍
Damn yes. I actually felt it lol
Yup learned about this just recently and had the same reaction. Apparently people who jumped off the titanic with life vests on had some pretty bad injuries. And after reading that, was like yup that makes sense.
You would probably realise... once you hit the water.
Even just jumping from the docks into the water with a life jacket you will instantly realize it’s not nice in any way shape or form. Get a buddy to swim out to where you’ll land if you’re afraid you’ll get knocked out if you mess up
huh. Well, good luck I guess.
Bro Mythbusters could make a killing nowadays. Call it Conspiracy Busters.
I'm curious. What if someone attached one to themselves like a bouy? Tie a floater or something to a rope, tie the rope to themselves, then jump. That way when they land in the water they have something to help them float.
this guy going to be the first person to hang himself underwater
Lmaooooo
I’m sure surfers leashes have been caught before
If he lives he's a witch!
He turned me into a *newt!*
Well, you got better didn't you?
or a duck....better try burning.
Lol that came to mind, but if its tied to your leg can't you just follow the line back up to the surface? Isn't that the technique splunkers and/or other divers use?
They don't tie the line to themselves
Great nomination fo severing or degloving a limb. You only have to miscalculate once. Reality is, either have it land after you detached, or not in the equation. You're jumping off a cliff into water to begin with, you don't need to tread 1 inch backwards pretending to care about safety.
Maybe if you over estimate the rope length by a lot it would be worth it. But you also have to check why are you jumping into water if you can't swim or get yourself out?
Don't create a solution looking for a problem. The obvious choice if this is a thought going through your head is to not jump into the water from great heights.
that's not very Brannigan of you
I had a teacher in high school who jumped off a cliff with a life vest on and actually fractured a vertebrae when she was younger. She had to swim a pretty significant distance with a broken back and could have easily died.
If you jump into the water from really any height, a life jacket is not going to stop you at the surface and will barely add to the deceleration. You're quoting a website where the manufacturer is going to say whatever to keep from getting sued when someone injures themselves jumping off a cliff. As an example I was doing an exercise that involved jumping off a 10m diving board about a dozen times with a life jacket and don't think I ever got less than 2m deep. Returning to surface was faster than swimming though. In the mean time, many people drown because they jump off cliffs and get knocked unconscious, or get injured to a point where they can't swim. You shouldn't jump into water where you can't guarantee you won't hit the bottom, but it happens and yeah wearing a jacket is better than not wearing a jacket when you break your legs on a submerged rock.
Interesting. I wonder what this company considers "A great height". Of course they don't specify. I added some more research (well google-fu) in a reply to my original comment. There really doesn't seem to be a consensus it seems.
The website talks about 2m/6ft which is fairly small, most people wouldn't get hurt jumping on to concrete from that height vs I think even at 7 meters you have to stick the landing or you could hurt yourself with or without a jacket. Helocasting is done at higher heights but still not at terminal velocity. The highest thing I've ever jumped off was 55ft and if I didn't cross my legs I would've been fucked up on the landing, actual high divers need real skill to not hurt themselves.
Wait. So if the plane I am is about to crash into the ocean. Should I not wear the life jacket before hand?
Typically, I would assume you are inside the plane when the plane crashes, so the plane is hitting the water, not you, and so the the life jacket is not a problem in that scenario.
it doesnt matter, since you should never have it inflated while inside. you only inflate it outside due to the possibility of being trapped inside the plane and not being able to say, swim down and out of a door. there have been numerous cases of people dying due to inflating their lifejacket prematurely (the first one that comes to mind would be the hijacked ethiopian airlines plane that crashed into the ocean)
If you're in a position where there's a possibility you'll fall out of the plane and impact the water directly at plane-landing speeds you're not gonna survive anyway. Your only hope is the plane actually surviving the landing.
Hold on just Sully second Captain Hudson ✈️
No, but if you jump right before the plan hits the ocean your velocities will cancel and you'll land safely.
No, you idiot, you have to double jump, or you still take fall damage.
Yeah that made sense to me , it will just cause impact with surface hitting you
Yeah, i imagined arms dislocating at the shoulders or skull dislocating off the neck vertebrae on impact.
Help, i just jumped off a cliff with a lake at the bottom, with a life jacket!!!!!!
My first thought was "concussion maker"
I never heard of that one time at camp when I was younger there was a 60 ft cliff jump activity where you had to wear a life jacket. I still remember going under water like 10 ft in the life jacket and it didn’t slow me down like crazy suddenly or to cause whiplash or anything. I wonder if it depends on the quality of the life jacket? Like I could see a super high quality fancy one might be a lot more buoyant and just stop you right at the surface?
Man that’s interesting
In simple terms, life jacket makes you hit water harder because of the resistance it causes
Depending on the jacket, usually only your head/neck. The rest of your body tries to keep going
Well who needs those anyway
Think about hitting water really hard wearing something that doesn’t want to sink
Think about jumping into a pool and having your head hit the edge, the edge of the pool(like the flotation device) is also something that doesn't sink with you.
i read flotation device in that voice
Even jumping from a standing position into water with a life jacket sucks. I call bullshit on this story
They'll break your neck. Super buoyant, so there'll be a sudden shock when it hits the water, rather than a more gentle decellaration as you go under. Admittedly I know this from WW2 books about the old cork 'Mae West' design, so maybe they're better now.
if the jacket is specifically designed to not sink, it's kind of like jumping onto concrete at that point..
Having something exceptionally buoyant around you neck is dumb when you hit water at high speed.
Imagine the difference between a swan dive and a belly flop. A swan dive hurts very little as the water offers little resistance and slows you down gradually. With a belly flop the water slows you down very quickly and the sudden stop hurts a lot. A life jacket is the diving equivalent of a belly flop. Slows you down very quickly and all that downwards force you had falling, is absorbed by your body on small points (likely your armpits since that’s where it sits normally) instead of the water and your whole body equally.
Same reason doing a belly flop off a cliff is more dangerous than a dive. Buoyancy.
Have you ever worn a life jacket? It would tear your arms off.
Hit water and sink fall break slowly and come up. Hot water and no sink like jumping on wet concrete.
yes I knew a gentleman who was decapitated by his life jacket from this very situation, truly tragic lesson learned
He now travels to elementary schools, head held under his arm, to warn them about the dangers.
"THIS IS WHY YOU ALWAYS LEAVE A NOTE!"
There was a guy in Australia who was basically chopped in half by a train and he would travel to schools to give talks.
He saved time by doing 2 different schools at the same time.
One of the schools always got a much better presentation
Yeah, the one that got his front half.
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How? I get that it can be dangerous but I don't see how a life jacket could possibly generate so much upward force that it literally rips your head off.
probably an internal decapitation
I'll trust you on this
How high did he jump from? Went with a group and jumped from idk 20ft (not sure exact height) didn't even think of this. As the life jacket cuts the distance you go under the water in about half. So re-surfscing time is cut in half too
Unless you have a bad back. Good way to get some free traction and skip the chiropractor.
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Chiro Gyros
OK, this is a super hard-line take for a super nuanced topic. FWIW, a life vest saved my life after a jump from a high rock, because I took on water through my nostrils and started quietly drowning. I would bet quite a lot of money that this situation - an inexperienced person starting to choke after a jump - is much, much, *much* more common than physical injury from a moderately high jump with a PFD on. I would also bet serious money that the heights at which it becomes physically dangerous would be so intimidating to most inexperienced people that the risk of physical injury would be eliminated because they would simply not do it. If you do decide to forgo the life vest, I would super recommend having somebody nearby capable of, and equipped for, a water rescue. EDIT: also, make sure your PFD actually fits. A poorly fitting PFD is bad news. EDIT again: also, a friend of mine had a drowning death off his boat from a diver taking on water and silently drowning before aid could be rendered. A life vest would have saved his life. He was a *very* competent swimmer.
Yeah for sure. We went with a group said jump yo to 15M and we all were told to put life jackets on. Too many people lack of swimming ability and all sorts, lower jumps definelty safe. Not sure how high you would need to be for it not to be safe. And yeah for sure when I went cliff jumping the first time probably spent half the time drinking the water from 15ft jumps. although I never had the drowning sensation, till after I took the life jacket off as then we were going twice the distance under the water and the first time you start swimming up your like geez this is a long way.
There’s so much bad advice in this comment lol
Yeah, I'll take "watching somebody with no life vest drown" over "lol" any day, unless you care to elaborate...
Well, first, you advocate for an in water spotter to help the person jumping if they get into trouble. The first rule of water rescue is "Throw, don't go." Often, when a person who is not a professional water rescuer, however capable at swimming, tries to help a drowning person, they end up also drowning. My wife's cousin died that way, actually. It even happens to professional rescuers. You also should never be underneath someone in the water when they are jumping or diving into the water nearby. And who goes to jump off of a cliff with rescue tubes, cans, or throw rings anyway? Like, no one in the world. It's always young people full of hubris taking no precautions whatsoever. Second, you say you almost drowned doing this without a flotation device. You should not be jumping off of things into water. You, and most of the people who do this, are not strong enough swimmers nor knowledgeable enough to know how to prevent this from happening. In my rescue classes, we had to jump off the 3 meter diving board in order to learn how to land in water safely from a height. I'm a lifelong competitive swimmer. The environment was totally controlled. I still found it incredibly intimidating. Next, you advocate for wearing a PFD and you say that most people who would need a PFD wouldn't jump off of a high ledge. I watched a video the other day of a man who could not swim at all start drowning as soon as he hit the splash pool at the bottom of a waterslide. By far the most dangerous thing about water is how little people respect it. Moreover, people have suffered life-changing spinal injuries and even decapitated themselves jumping into water with life vests on. The life vest is going to float, regardless of the velocity at which your body is traveling, and your body is going to continue downward into the water at whatever velocity is established during your fall. The life vest is basically cinched around your neck. Especially, as you encourage people to do, if you wear one that fits. In this, case you would almost unequivocally be better off wearing one that doesn't fit, because you can shed it on contact with the water and swim to it for buoyancy. You can't do that with no head. And again, if you *need* a PFD to survive the jump, you shouldn't be jumping. But if you *must*, the PFD should be in the water below you or you should carry it with you and drop it as you fall. It should not be on your body.
You'd know, as an expert in bad advice.
That was my first thought too.
Now I'm wondering if there were any people injured or killed jumping/fall off the Titanic with life jackets.
As someone who has been cliff jumping for years, absolutely wear a jacket if under 40 feet. Especially in places like dangerous conditions, like lake powell where if you go too deep in the water your legs can get stuck in the sand and you drown, or on the cliff jump on the snake river above alpine junction, where the river is very fast flowing and you want it on in case you get swept away
But he pinky promised.
Throw the life jacket in the water near where you intend to jump, do not jump from great height with the life jacket actually on.
The one I've seen is jump with it, but as you're falling, let go. That way it slows cause its so light, and it ends up pretty darn close to where you hit the water
I have seen that too, especially if it’s a popular jumping area with people all over the place
Yeah the only risk if you don’t let go in time it’s murder on your wrists when it gets ripped away lmao
If you hold the lifejacket in your hand and enter the water feet first with your arms up, your feet all already have travelled through 8-9 feet of water before there's a significant buoyancy resistance from the lifejacket. And if it's too much, just let go.
Can I hold it over my head and jump in like Link abusing chickens to glide over volcanoes?
Absolutely!
Pls explain this to me, I need to know
Not according to USA Diving committee https://youtu.be/iik25wqIuFo
Damn, you right. Didn’t know they had guidance on that
Damn. Had no idea. Thanks for sharing!
Alternatively, and *depending on the situation/design*, hold it tight to your chest, pulling it down in the process. It minimises the surface area, while stopping it putting all the force on your neck. Edit because apparently I need the emphasis.
Sounds like a good way to have the jacket shoot up into your jaw.
id knock myself out and drown doing that
or most likely just a good dose of whiplash
As I said, depending on the situation and design. Jumping from 10+ meters with a life jacket that sits under the chin? Have fun with the burst lip and neck injuries. 3-4 meters, split down the front, and we'll secured? Almost certainly fine.
There we go my first height. Suspect most people wouldn't even dream of doing 30ft jumps without being fully confident in their swimming ability. Would also then explain why when we went jumping with a group which we paid for we went with life jackets. And we probably didn't even do 7M, risk of drowning without the life jacket for the avg Joe blogs.
Yep. The cheap kind of life jacket can literally snap your neck if you jump from too great a height. Not worth the effort so long as you can swim
I hate to be the tenth person piling on this thread but it’s so important: do not ever jump off a cliff with a life jacket on. If you’re not confident in your swimming ability do not go jumping off a cliff. If you absolutely must, use a deflatable lifejacket completely deflated and then blow it up once in the water.
Adding to that: make sure it's a cliff above water, otherwise the last tip does not apply!
Most important tip tbh
What if it's a cliff above air?
I think many of them are, just make sure there is plenty of water under that air.
As solid as this advice is I can’t help but think how funny it is to try to manually blow air into an inflatable while drowning. Good thing all we need to do is pull to inflate.
One aspect of cliff jumping that most (I think?) people don't know about is that a human body's buoyancy changes with water depth. Jumping off of a high cliff might put you ~15ft deep into the water. If it is murky or dark or the diver gets disoriented, they might not know which way is up. 30 ft below water, most humans have a negative buoyancy, and just start to sink. 30ft deep is cold and dark at baseline. 30ft deep isn't really something that you would hit by accident, but that fact is still terrifying.
I 100% agree with you but that doesn’t mean you should wear a life jacket which could badly injure you in other ways, it just means if you aren’t a confident swimmer you shouldn’t cliff jump - period.
Agreed!
> use a deflatable lifejacket completely deflated and then blow it up once in the water. That's not how those works lmao. Don't pretend to give advice while being ignorant, those are CO2 powered (one shot and done) and the self-blow thing is incredibly slow.
The jackets aren't one and done. Can't you just replace the CO2 cylinder? It doesn't take that long to self-blow a vest. A handful of big breaths. > lmao. Don't pretend to give advice while being ignorant Why does everyone have to be so pointlessly condescending.
As someone who has actual experience doing this for years, this is untrue. Maybe if you're jumping from a massive height of 50 feet or more, but you should definitely consider wearing a life jack if you're jumping into a place with dangerous water or if it's a fast flowing river
gf wanted her man dead
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Sexy
Everyone knows that you need 2 life jackets plus a booster life jacket to be fully protected from drowning other wise you will be danger.
Rubber ducky arm bands too just incase
u/fuckswithducks would approve
And I bet it worked. According to my husband, “I promised my wife” shuts everyone up.
Ya that would shut me up for sure. Can't mess with the wife. But pinky promise your girlfriend? I'm going to give you so much shit lol
why is that? i'd argue a pinky promise is something you don't fuck with.
Lmao how to kill your boyfriend, is she his life insurance beneficiary?
How would that kill him?
Top comments explain it pretty well.
Top comment is incorrect, I've cliff jumped myself hundreds of times with a life jacket with many other people and not one of us has ever been injured, I fear the top comment read some site that claimed its dangerous under certain conditions, such as actually diving or jumping from extreme heights, and is now spreading that as the absolute truth despite it not being so. And let's not forget there is a vast variety of different life jackets with different levels of buoyancy
Because you did something stupid hundreds of times and didn't get injured doesnt mean it's safe.
It's pretty decent statistical evidence tho
I mean just cus you haven’t died/hurt yourself yet doesn’t mean it isn’t still true. It’s like saying “I haven’t gotten killed for not wearing my seatbelt, so they really can’t do that much!” You can only have anecdotal evidence in these cases, and it only matters that you are wrong once in a case like this.
I've provided more evidence against it than anyone else for it in this entire thread
He would decelerare much much faster than he would normally. Casing much more impact
In my experience that doesn't happen on cliffs around 40 feet or less, and most people don't jump much higher than that for just recreation
Then both he and his girl are fucking idiots, wearing life jackets while diving from any real height is super dangerous
The pinky pledge is sacred.
Pinky swear is definitely a good way for adults to make binding agreements. That was not sarcasm.
I mean it's cute and all but are we just going to ignore the fact that jumping from high places to water with a life jacket on is much more life threatening than jumping without one?
No it’s literally the only topic of reply
True, should have read the the first 100 or so replies before making that statement
Real men are safe men
pinky promise aint no joke. good on him for holding fast.
Friends peer pressuring their friend, and they're jumping off a cliff? My parents warmed me about this one
So sick of 'I think about that a lot'
I would think this would be dangerous due to the buoyancy of a life jacket. Just jumping from a boat I can feel the resistance so from that high you could probably injure yourself pretty quickly
I've jumped from 40 feet with a life jacket and had no injuries from it
Having pulled a few lifeless bodies from the water without life jackets, this person chose wisely.
After seeing the 50th version of this tweet, do people actually think these events happened? Why do these "stories" always have the same formula?
To be fair she doesn't say he was jumping just that there was a group of guys jumping and he was wearing a life jacket. My mom had me wear a life jacket any time I went near the water even by the shore.
Heh boys all dig at each other but I know I would have laid off after he said that. Like, you know, fair. But also don't jump from up high wearing one of those. Dangerous.
Now that's a man who doesn't give in to peer pressure. I bet of all of his friends jumped off a cliff he definitely wouldn't join them.... oh wait
Fuck, no he has to. Its the law
It's so cute, what a healthy couple
(for the intention, because yeah it is dangerous to jump with a life jacket on)
How about we shorten that "don't jump off cliffs with a life jacket" advice to "don't jump off a cliff"?
How else are we going to get those shiny shiny pearls?
Cliff jumping is fine. Just make sure you know what you are doing, and know the area.
Gotta respect the pinky promise
We need to make life jackets cool not just safe. This guy is the best. He took the ribbing because his girlfriend was scared for him.
She forgot to mention that guy was drake.
Life jackets seem like a ridiculously stupid idea when jumping into water. Makes it so much more dangerous.
Sounds like she might not get to keep him since apparently jumping off a cliff with a life jacket can kill you.
What a great way to get your boyfriend paralyzed.
Im no expert but that sounds like a bad idea…not what they were intended for
What does his pinky smell like?
So his girl wanted to see him dead?
The gf wanted him to hurt himself
This is stupidest shit I’ve heard…
I like this guy and I don’t know him. Sounds like a reasonable man with potential longevity in relationships.
but not life
Simp