Is This Guy Dead?

Dillon Cheverere10 years ago

This hombre up there in the Texas trunks leaping from a beachside motel roof into a pool. Is he dead? This guy might be dead. I put it at about a 40 percent chance this guy is legitimately dead. I make jokes and all, but I think this guy might actually be dead, or possibly lying motionless on a hospital bed in some Gulf Coast town with tubes coming out of every orifice of his body. Or maybe this occurred out of country and this guy’s parents are currently in the process of transporting his corpse back to the U.S. for a proper stateside burial. For the record, I hope he’s alive and well, although I have a feeling he’s not. I have a feeling he’s dead.

The above picture of a soon-to-be dead spring breaker was submitted to our annual TFM Spring Break Photo Contest by user gdi_pusy with the caption “High dive into the pool. TFM.” That’s a pretty nonchalant caption, isn’t it? It suggests that a feat of this magnitude is commonplace for Texas-bred spring breakers, and it suggests this guy landed in the pool safely, without severe bodily harm. Common physics simply paint a different picture of the outcome, though. I reached out to gdi_pusy via email to get some backstory here. I asked him a few basic questions.

1. Can you explain what led to this guy risking his life for a cheap thrill?
2. How high was he jumping from? It’s difficult to tell exactly how high he takes off from.
3. Did he make it to the water?
4. How drunk was he and who put him up to this?
5. Straight up, is this motherfucker dead?

I’ve yet to hear back from Mr. pusy, so I’m going to to do my best to analyze this photo and deduce the likelihood of this guy’s current condition. Did all these people standing around the pool witness this guy’s gruesome demise? Did his feet hit the bottom of the pool so hard that it thrust his knees up through his face, rendering him braindead? Did he simply knock himself out and drown? Did he even make the pool? Maybe he bounced his brain off the pavement and died instantly? Did he catch his chin on the side of the pool, ripping his skull clean off his spine? Is this guy fucking dead?!

From how high did he jump?

To me, it’s clear he jumped from the roof of this shitty beachside motel. Or am I seeing it wrong? His apparent trajectory wouldn’t be possible had he taken off from the same balcony the camera is on, right? So, the question we now have to find an answer to is this: Is this building two or three stories? Photographs can be so deceiving regarding depth perception, but I’m fairly confident this is a three-story structure we’re talking about. The below frame shows what I believe to be a shot of the second story balcony, although I can’t be certain.

If this is a three-story motel, which I’m pretty sure is the case, he is jumping from an estimated elevation of 40 feet. A good 40 drunken feet separate the roof and the surface of the swimming pool.

Did he even reach the pool?

Did he even reach the motherfucking pool?! I have to assume he did, and again, photographs can be deceiving, but he has to clear a good 15 feet of pavement to reach the water, right? More? Less? Fuck, I don’t know. EMAIL ME BACK, gdi_pusy. I have questions, man. If he didn’t, damn, it was a messy, messy scene. They’d just scoop his heap of shattered bones and bloody flesh up with a shovel and wheelbarrow him off to the morgue, I’m afraid.

That pool is four feet deep, TOPS.

Look at the guy near the center of the pool. He’s standing asshole deep in the water. That’s a sports pool, man. A cheap motel essential. It’s designed for activities like pool volleyball and chicken fights and shit. What that means is it’s not a deep pool. It’s shallow. Those fuckers are about three and a half feet at the ends and four in the middle — the kind that have pictures plastered all around them of a stick figure diving head-first into a shallow pool with a big red line through it. Like this. No diving head-first from the side of the pool, because you can severely injure your spine or even die. That’s from an elevation of zero feet.

So, uh, no jumping into the pool from the roof of the adjacent three-story dwelling, please. The pool is not equipped to handle that kind of action. Like at all. That sign doesn’t exist, because it shouldn’t need to.

Conclusion: Dead.

Update: HE’S ALIVE

A sweet young lady named Abby sent me an email to tell me that our jumper is not only alive and doing well, but he also woke up next to a couple hotties the morning after his death-defying leap. Pics included because my girl Abbs is the truth.

Bonus pic because Abbs is cute:

A beautiful ending.

Update 2: We’ve got the video.

So, I was obviously wrong about him jumping from the roof. I’m disappointed in myself more than anything. That’s probably about an eight foot difference in elevation. Still dangerous, but I’m no longer surprised he survived.

The jumper actually sent me this video himself. He confirms it was three stories. He also confirms that he’s alive, which is nice..