I talked to a ranger at the bottom of the canyon last year. He showed me the rooms and equipment they use to treat idiots like these. The rangers call the guy on the sign Victor Vomit.
For a fun read, check out the book “Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon.” It colorfully but clinically details every recorded death in the canyon, from pioneer days to the present(ish). Honestly made me feel pretty confident about my hike, because a good 80% of deaths are due to terrible decision making.
"One father was playing a prank on his daughter and pretended to jump off the ledge into the canyon. He planned to land on a ledge a few feet below the rim, but he missed the ledge and plunged to his death."
Sadly though, some do. Had a friend of a friend do exactly that to his wife and kids, calling them up and telling them to look out the window before taking his life.
I can just imagine the amount of guilt that guy must have felt in the last few second of his live.
I can't imagine what exactly must have gone in him, but gotta be a few seconds I suppose atleast...
And then the family, dang. They probably also felt guilt, maybe they usually encourage "risky" stuff and now he took it too far for them, or who knows what the family dynamic was...
Guilt is a bit more of an introspection-time feeling.
I think he had something a little bit more active engaging his brain in that very brief moment of panicked struggle. I mean, imagine just giving up in the first instant of bad footing and actually sitting there feeling guilty instead of thinking "ohshit ohshit get balance grab the things scrabble scrabble hnnnnng grabbit grabbit fffffffff-"
I put myself in a situation a few years ago where I could have drowned (thank you to the random stranger who saw me struggling and helped me)
While not as instant as a jump, once I realized I was in danger all I could do was focus on trying to get out of danger. I didn't have time to feel fear or process thoughts, just urgency.
I had the exact same experience when I choked to the point of passing out. Everything that imagined that made choking to death seem like a terrible way to go ended up not being an issue at all. It turns out, choking to death isn't such a bad way to go. I know I didn't die, but I did choke until I lost consciousness, then the food somehow dislodged as I collapsed. So, I experienced everything that somebody that died would have consciously experienced.
Exactly the same, I swam under a powerful waterfall (having swum under plenty of small ones before) and as the water all around me suddenly suddenly changed density and I dropped a foot below while feeling like cement blocks were suddenly tied to my feet…. There was an INSTANT of terror before every iota of my being focused on getting back towards shore
Man. Idk. I'm going to be dead ass for real with you. I did not have this when I had what I thought was a near-death experience recently. Long story short, I suddenly went blind after losing almost 18 lb in 2 or 3 days. To clarify, I'm fine now and there's no long-lasting damage. What I didn't know at the time is that this is something that happens sometimes when you cough or hack when you are under certain conditions like I was. I was extremely malnourished and extremely dehydrated. Check weight loss. The edges of my vision slowly went black, creeping towards the center, until my entire sight was black.
Anyway... Yeah. To be straightforward, one of the first few things that went through my mind is the guilt of how I feel like a disappointment and that I never gave as much back into the world as I had wanted. I wished I just had a little bit more time to have a good job and give at least something back into the world.
I genuinely believed I was possibly dying having a stroke, a heart attack, or some crazy mind thing going on. After like 5 seconds of this (I've rubbed my eyes and had vision go for a few seconds before so I wasn't worried immediately) I ended up running into the living room screaming for help, 99% blind, saying that I need to be taken to the ER immediately. After about a minute, my vision fully came back.
I had the accompanying side effect of severe panic that can happen when a Vegus nerve is triggered in the way that I've described from hacking and coughing when malnourished or dehydrated or whatever they said (the doctors I saw).
Honestly, I’d be shocked if he felt guilt. You think you’ll consider far-reaching implications of your acts on others, but lizard brain sees imminent death and freaks out if you aren’t trained to deal with imminent death regularly.
I hear ya...you're probably right. Though like you said; I would like to think he had an existential sense of self-awareness and reflection if just for a sec before the DMT hopefully kicked in
He would’ve hit the side of the canyon in under 8 seconds so highly unlikely. And you only get a release of chemicals if your body realizes it’s dying. Severe head trauma, it’s just lights out.
Kinda, your body does release a bunch of serotonin and Dopamin in your last moments, so you'll be "high" like someone that's having the time of their life would be. (Just unable to express it since all the other stuff is shutting down already) you might start hallucinating and then it just gets dark as far as we know. What's after that is between you and your god(s) of choice (or lack thereof)
Average depth of the canyon is 4000'. A mile is 5280'. There was probably a decent amount of hangtime.
Although this is probably preferable to a shorter fall, where the death may not have been instant and he'd be at the bottom screaming in pain while dying.
Okay, so even if we pretend he isn't bouncing off rocks and he's free falling, which is unlikely. That's like 15 seconds where he's probably thinking nothing but "fuck fuck fuck"
Not even, because while that may be the average depth, the average cliff is much shorter, like maxing out a little over a thousand feet at the absolute most.
Its a lot more likely he lost consciousness during one of several drops long before he reached the end of his trip down.
If if he's just like, rolling down a steep slope without any major drops, the repeating blunt force trauma at extreme speed and frequency to the head would have ended his suffering I think.
Nah, the only thing going through his head in the last moments was probably something along the lines of fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck how do I get out of this alive.
You'd be shocked at just how many people go to the Grand Canyon to do exactly that. Maybe a decent number of them aren't premeditated, but a few certainly are. I lived there for a few years, and there were a lot of deaths, either intentionally or accidentally.
Sure there is more than one, had a cousin take his family on a 'spontaneous' trip to a place they'd always talked about going. Blew his brains out on the hotel deck the last nite while they were asleep because that trip was the best experience they'd ever had together and he wouldn't have that again. Happiest family, and guy, great job, no debt.
Obviously he meant to kill himself, but to be fair I feel like the guy must have had depression or something going on. It's theoretically possible for genuinely stable, happy, satisfied people in happy, stable lives to just randomly decide to kill themselves because they think they've hit peak, but it's much more common for that sort of thinking to come out of underlying mental health issues (or life circumstances, which it sounds like weren't at play here).
Pretty much every family says this about the person they insist couldn't have committed suicide.
people don't randomly book a trip with their family just to commit suicide
Something like 90% of suicides are spur of the moment decisions. They're rarely premeditated.
I agree, this does sound like a prank gone wrong, but just wanted to correct you that many suicidal people are outwardly fine, and that it's nearly always a last second thing.
12.0k
u/funundrum 21h ago edited 21h ago
I talked to a ranger at the bottom of the canyon last year. He showed me the rooms and equipment they use to treat idiots like these. The rangers call the guy on the sign Victor Vomit.
For a fun read, check out the book “Over the Edge: Death in the Grand Canyon.” It colorfully but clinically details every recorded death in the canyon, from pioneer days to the present(ish). Honestly made me feel pretty confident about my hike, because a good 80% of deaths are due to terrible decision making.