r/interestingasfuck • u/ThugLeeVoguee • 1d ago

The implosion of the Titan submarine (OceanGate) was so rapid that the pain wasn't even registered by the brain. They didn't feel anything at all. Utterly instantaneous.

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u/makina323 1d ago edited 1d ago

The implosion happened in less than 5 milliseconds, it takes a brain 300 milliseconds for the brain hardware to register and process a conscious reaction to it. They literally just stopped existing with zero knowledge that it happened.

Edit

To those people disputing the time, this is an average human, yes you can lower your reaction times by training your reflexes, your brain can process visual stimulus in 13 to 16 ms, but you wont consciously comprehend it for another 100 ms at best and there is another 150-300 ms delay to physically react like saying oh shit or blink, and even still in this scenario the last image your eyes picked up when the sub imploded 3 milliseconds ago is still being formed in your retina.

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u/immortal_pelican 1d ago edited 22h ago

I recently watched a video about what would happen if you were 6m away from a nuke when it detonates and it was essentially the same outcome. Your entire body is converted to ionized plasma in a few billionths of a second and you instantly cease to exist

Edit: Wow this comment blew up. Sauce for people who have asked: https://youtu.be/Q77sBy-RmbI?is=5rvk9VSxY56cn7-e

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u/DonkyFondler 1d ago

A while back, I learned that when someone dies from a fall from a great height, they don't experience the impact. They are falling so fast that the last thing they will be conscious of is being a short distance from the ground. The actual impact will not have time to register in the brain.

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u/jolhar 1d ago

But the terror during the fall is it own sort of pain. It would still be a horrible way to go.

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u/IHaveTeaForDinner 22h ago

The knowing that this is your end and there is NOTHING that can change that.

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u/Three-Sixteen-M7-7 16h ago

A pretty common thread from people who attempt and fail suicide, by jumping, is the realization, often immediately after jumping, that this isn’t actually what they wanted.

Horrifying

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u/95_lb_mole 5h ago

The documentary The Bridge has an interview with a guy that survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and IIRC he said pretty much exactly that. Basically the instant his foot left the bridge he regretted it. Most don't survive that fall, though.

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u/machiavelli33 17h ago

The view from halfway down.

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u/OGBRedditThrowaway 21h ago

Isn't this any sort of death?

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u/MysticScribbles 20h ago

Only if you're actively aware of it. Plenty of ways to die where it blindsides you. Mainly foul play, but even tripping and cracking your head on the ground you may not even realize that you're about to die.

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u/LinearInductionMotor 20h ago

It’s terrifying to think about death. The pessimistic part of me says that, by all chances, i will know and it will be painful. Even cracking my head on the ground, there’s gonna be at least a few seconds of excruciating pain and terror, and a realization that you’re living your last moments. It’s so dreadful to think about, but the physiology of it is intriguing

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u/IHaveTeaForDinner 14h ago

It's terrifying thinking that at some point you'll just cease to exist.

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u/14domino 3h ago

I’ve had a moment where I thought I was going to die and it was actually strangely calm (high speed car crash). The car miraculously bounced in such a way that we lost a lot of velocity and there were no serious injuries. I’ve heard that this has been the experience for other people as well.

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u/VarashiOW 13h ago

Unless you can press a button and go back 10 seconds.

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u/GrandMasterRimJob 21h ago

Insert The View From Halfway Down

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u/browsinbowser 20h ago

a woman a year or two ago committed suicide through jumping off a plane, one of those parachute jumpers that had done hundreds of jumps that year. She was a mom of a toddler, had gone through a divorce, and was dating her affair partner who was also one of those sky-divers but he was a coach, it was his job, anyways he had broken up with her recently, Brutal story,it was big news for a day or two where she was from.

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u/Liquid_Profanity 21h ago

yeah, most people i'm guessing don't fear the pain of impact. They fear the fall itself and/or (depending on height) if they will survive but be crippled or brain dead.

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u/smellygooch18 21h ago

For someone who really wants to die I’d imagine it wouldn’t be so scary.

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u/CodifiedLikeUtil 21h ago

Sadly lots of stories (from survivors, mostly bridge jumpers who hit water) of people regretting the choice almost immediately.

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u/smellygooch18 21h ago

God, surviving a bridge jump attempt probably leaves you in pretty bad physical shape. I wonder what those people even look like after such a thing.

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u/BoleroMuyPicante 21h ago

It's not uncommon for bridge jumpers to survive the initial impact but then drown due to their injuries.

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u/CodifiedLikeUtil 19h ago

I recall one San Fran bridge jumper who survived. He was very lucky to, of course. The impact broke plenty of bones. He got better (both physically and mentally) and surviving the fall changed his life completely.

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u/Wonderful-Fold-2585 21h ago

Probably big ouchies.

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u/attempt_no23 19h ago

I wonder this about OceanGate too. Did they hear some crack and start to wonder if they were screwed or exactly how long did they have to ponder/accept their ultimate fate? (One could argue the moment they boarded the submersible but really, I wonder how long if at all it was an oh shit moment.)

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u/assbutt-cheek 16h ago

theres a video of the inside of the sub when sounds were heard, and 3 people discussed it a bit. and it was a bit like "what was that sound?" and they just look at eachother, and one of them leaves. they looked like they knew what was about to happen, but were pretty calm about it

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u/attempt_no23 14h ago

When you say "one of them leaves", if we watched the same doc, that was the wife of the owner of the company sitting at a desk on land with 2 others hearing audio, at a delayed pace. The people above water who heard the snap/crackle/pop and they all knew exactly what that meant. That doesn't answer the question of the people inside the sub itself; how early did they know it was doomed before it happened? All one can hope for is, they didn't, but that seems to be wishful thinking. Even if I'm going to blast into particles, I hope I'm not freaking out on accepting that for 5 minutes before it happens.

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u/Warrmak 18h ago

There are definitely worse ways to go. A slow fall in a nursing home comes to mind.

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u/Funny-Cell8769 20h ago

If the people who are still alive stopped thinking in terms of "horrible way to go because it 100.000000% does not matter to the now-dead person", wouldn't it be better for everyone involved?

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u/Striking-Ad-6815 19h ago

And then when your DMT releases you probably just replay the event over and over till your mind is physically incapable due to crush or strain

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u/noncornucopian 18h ago

The DMT thing is a stoner myth.

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u/Striking-Ad-6815 2h ago

It exists in human brains in trace amounts naturally

While you might be right about it not shooting off at time of death, I personally think it has another function

While it may yet to be proven, I hypothesize that our natural DMT is what gives us the ability to have mental visualization and imagination, and may also have an impact on dreaming.

Some folk do not have visualization, imagination or dreams; in this case I believe that these folk produce less natural DMT.

Many mammals have the same thing going on, and as we know some amphibians have adapted to produce a significant amount more than we have in our brains, but they store it in a different part of their body

Giraffes are the funniest ones to me. They eat from acacia trees and DMT stores up in such a degree it can be found in their bone marrow.

Back to the point, while the death-DMT-release thing might be an urban legend that is incredibly hard to study, the compound is found naturally in trace amount in most mammals.

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u/DonkyFondler 14h ago

Yes, but not as horrible as burning to death. Apparently, that is the worst.

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u/Wonderful-Fold-2585 21h ago

I fell like 20m one time when my safety equipment failed. I basically had to react make another one go before I got splattered. Falling pretty fast though.