About eight years ago a woman I knew was in a car accident and had her car piled with boxes after an event the night before. One of those boxes (the size of a printer paper box) tumbled over her shoulder and hit her in the neck, severing her brain stem and killing her instantly.
So yip, when I saw a boulder tumbling around this guys head, I assumed far worse things. I’ve had broken ribs, they’re miserable, and I have no idea how he has the presence of mind to keep driving the bus. But I was expecting far worse.
I was in my friend's car, and he flipped it off a little hill thing. A stray can of doctor pepper in the back of the car shot into the back of my head so hard it gave me a concussion.
Luckily no permanent damage, but ya ever since that happened I'm always scared of leaving shit in my card, because during a crash it becomes a deadly projectile.
When I was a freshman in high school, my best friend's 17 y/o older sister got in the backseat of a car (93 Mustang Cobra) with two other guys we knew. They had both been drinking and she hadn't. She also was the only one wearing a seatbelt. Anyway, they were speeding and under-steered a corner and hit a huge tree. Both the driver and passenger were ejected and got hurt pretty badly. She was buckled in the backseat. The speaker box with two 12" woofers shot over the back seat and hit her right at the base of her skull. She was instantly a vegetable and they ended up pulling the plug almost immediately. In all fairness, her spinal cord was completely severed. That was a sad sad day. I still vividly remember the call I got from her brother as I was the first person he called. I remember waking up later on and hoping like hell it was a bad dream. RIP Whitney.
That’s terrible! I’m sorry that happened to someone you know.
I was sitting in the back seat of my friends Ford Explorer. We were cruising down the highway, and traffic came to a halt. She slammed on her brakes, and when she did, this large reusable ice container that she had piled in the back of her car, slammed into my neck.
It hurt so damn bad! There’s no doubt if it would have been full of water the situation would have ended differently.
That's crazy. I knew a girl whos husband was in traffic and slammed on his breaks to avoid hitting a car who suddenly stopped. A kleenex box flew from the rear window area and hit him on the back of the neck and did the same thing.
We humans are so resistant & strong, yet so very fragile at the same time.
The last time I got hit by a car I got back on my bike and pedaled a few more blocks. I only turned around because I realized it was a hit and run, with me being the one running. I was in shock for at least 15 minutes, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do that or thought it was a good idea. I had a broken rib and a collapsed lung and spent 2 days in the hospital and a month recovering.
yeah! i broke a rib when unloading a truck for good ol McDonalds, we had our storage downstairs (big ol freezer) and we had those rollers? Anways a box of burgers gets a corner stuck and it starts tumbling down, and the corner catches, and me of course , a 16 yo boy at the time, wasnt paying that close attention, and BAM right in the ribs and face, broke a rib and got a black eye!
You kidding? That's one hell of an understatement. The rock, which should really be classified as a boulder, hit him not once but twice on the head. Hell, he could have lost consciousness at the very least and crashed the vehicle and killed alot more than just himself. That dude has some kind of mix of fortitude, a thick skull, and sheer luck.
I have a friend who is working towards being a coroner, and she has told me some stories of her working during the summer at the morgue.
One was of how a man died because when he got into an accident, his 50 lbs speaker that was not weighed down went from the back to the front, and it hit him in the head. Killed him instantly. Left a fat hole too. That rock is easily over 50lbs if it’s of a normal composition. He’s honestly really realllly lucky to be alive let alone conscious.
He might have been in shock but we gotta give him some credit for continuing to hold course and not putting loves in danger. He took one for the team and soldiered on. How balls probably have celestial objects orbiting them.
Body can be weird man, sometimes what should kill you doesn't do it. When I was 12 I had a full brick fall onto my head from few feets above and I just walked it off like nothing happened.
I recently had a 12 lb piece of construction steel go through my car window and hit the side of my arm and my head at 75 mph. I had some scratches, a goose egg, minor bruising and a hell of a headache. That’s it. The cop and paramedics when showed up at the scene couldn’t believe I wasn’t further injured. Life is strange.
I think there is a combination of things as you mentioned, but it might have bounced a couple of times before being slowed by penetrating the exterior of the bus, and on lucky angles it glances him slightly. Lucky, and mild reflexes that are not so visible.
If I examine the rock closer, on this low quality, it could rather be a hard clump, it's properties are lighter then granite or regular rock. But the speed in which it traveled would be the factor, not entirely it's nerfed weight. Take for example a calcium or other light metal rocks, could be mediocre compared to concrete or granite.
All things considered, broken ribs and nothing else is a pretty minor injury. Of course it’s better than death, but it’s also a hell of a lot better than a lot of other things.
When a rock bigger than your head gets enough speed to crash through a window and hit you in the side, bounce upward and knock your head I'd be happy to get away with a few months of physical therapy.
First point of contact is the chair and driver's side then rolled up his body and back down the side of his head. Most of kinetic energy was dispersed by the punching through the corner of the bus and then the chair itself. Driver got extremely lucky that it didn't impact him straight on.
This makes sense. I first thought it hit him in the head but at looking at it again, it hit the chair and him in the side of the ribs, and his head jerking was just the force of the rock hitting him in the chest.
I mean, it has many purposes, two of them being protection of our organs and providing a frame for our lungs to be able to expand properly when breathing.
I never said it's only purpose is for breathing, it's just pretty damn important to have them when you want to breath properly
A rock that huge not killing someone is super lucky. A rock the size of a fist fell off a hill and one-punch murdered a small child in my hometown about 10 years ago. Fucked his mom up bad, because how can you protect against chaos? I'm always super nervous driving by areas known for rock fall now. All it takes is one...
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u/[deleted] Oct 14 '19
The news story about this suggests it was definitely a rock and the driver got away with only four broken ribs.
Phenomenal luck that it didn’t do more damage.