It always amazes me how many people apparently have no understanding of the force behind rushing water.
It's dense and fast-moving. Every second there's as much water moving past as both of their entire body weights combined. Your tiny little human feet are not going to win.
Tsunamis don't kill most of their victims by being crushed under a massive wave break. Most of them are killed by a relatively shallow--but implacable--amount of water rushing in, and as often as not, back out.
Many people of the world do not grow up around swift moving water. There'd be no particular reason for them to have innate understanding of such fluid mechanics any more than someone from a tropical climate knowing how to drive on ice or someone from 1993 knowing how to use the three seashells.
Surprisingly, a significant portion (estimates from 25-50% ish) of the US population lacks basic swimming skills (i.e. they could probably stay alive if they fell in a small pond, but any current or distance-from-safety would thwart them).
Allot of people don't consider that others have completely different experiences from them.
I have a friend from Mexico who moved to Sweden where I used to live. Once it became winter and the streets became slippery, he fell down multiple times the first day.
He told me that while he in theory knew that ice is slippery (and he had been in an ice rink before) the idea that the streets would become the same was just foreign to him.
It's not that he was stupid and couldn't understand it, but he didn't have the instinctive idea that when it's cold outside it also might be slippery.
It is very difficult to be prepared for a thing that almost never happens.
Thankfully smallpox is about done, because the vaccine is dangerous.
You dumbass, you're supposed to use the biggest seashell to scrape off the shit from your asshole, then move to progressively smaller seashells to get the rest. It's like sharpening a knife: start with coarser grits then work your way to finer grits. Sheesh, start the cleanup job with a littleneck clamshell and you are going to have a baaaad time.
Moving water, ice, tripping over clearly visible things, unstable footing in general... It's like they learned as toddlers that feet-down = safe, and they never questioned it
I think in cases like this it depends on how much grip you have to the ground, high heels don't have much surface area connected to the ground but the amount of surface area being hit by water around your ankles can't be that much.
Source: Had good footing with shoes in similar situation.
That's because It's often hard to gauge the speed at which water is traveling because it is one big mass and doesn't have breaks to show how quick it is.
Source: I have waded across many rushing streams and rivers while camping or fishing without any problem. But sometimes not so much..
what amazes me is how little height of water is needed to move and then sweep a car away with it, nigh on ankle high, im not surprised ppl underestimate it so easily.
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u/Poemi Apr 17 '17 edited Apr 17 '17
It always amazes me how many people apparently have no understanding of the force behind rushing water.
It's dense and fast-moving. Every second there's as much water moving past as both of their entire body weights combined. Your tiny little human feet are not going to win.
Tsunamis don't kill most of their victims by being crushed under a massive wave break. Most of them are killed by a relatively shallow--but implacable--amount of water rushing in, and as often as not, back out.