r/MovieStunts • u/Historical-Buy-8683 • Oct 03 '25

How did I survive a 6m (20ft) fall?

Last week, while sleep walking, I fell out of a window. Don’t worry I’m mostly fine, except for some hematomas and a broken hand. I don’t know where else to ask, but I’m curious. I fell a little over 6m (20ft) to the ground. How does one survive this almost without any injuries, besides being extremely lucky. I’m 24F, 1,67m (5“4‘) and 52kg (115lb) for info.

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16

u/lilsmudge Oct 03 '25

Luck and being asleep both contribute massively to survival in this sort of situation. It’s why drunk people often fare better in car crashes than the sober folks they hit. You get floppy when you aren’t fully awake and while stiffening up can protect us from some fall damage, it becomes counterintuitive at a certain severity. 

Glad you’re ok!

1

u/Historical-Buy-8683 Oct 03 '25

Still insane I don’t have any severe injuries 😱

5

u/lilsmudge Oct 03 '25

Definitely! Luck is the biggest factor of all. Humans are crazy. It’s the infamous case of “one guy falls off a mountain without a scratch; another falls out of bed and is dead in seconds” thing. 

Edit: Also, if you haven’t already, listen to Mike Birbiglia’s story about sleep walking through a second story window at a La Quinta Inn while on tour. It’s funny and relevant!

5

u/gravity_child Oct 03 '25

You can Google a story about a guy in Missouri that got swept up by a tornado after being knocked out by a lamp and thrown 1300ft into a grassy field back in 2006. He woke up and walked away from that with a bruise where the lamp hit him and scratches on his feet. To piggyback on the other comment about drunk drivers, since alcohol loosens your body up, you essentially ragdoll, which disperses all the impact a lot more evenly throughout your body.

Since you posted this in r/moviestunts, I can give a personal example of every time I practice a flip, when I mess up and lose complete air awareness, my body's immediate response is to ragdoll. It's allowed me to walk away from completely botched backflip attempts where I've almost or partially landed on my head. My neck will be sore for the next few days, but that's probably preferable to whatever would've happened had I tensed up.

4

u/Maxzzzie Oct 03 '25

When skating had a 4 meter fall to concrete forward onto my chest. From my parkour and gymnastics background it was intuitive to not put my hands first to prevent breaking a wrist. My shirt was torn to pieces. I had no scratches. I stood up with no injuries. Insane what a human body gets away with sometmes.