Certain Injury... Or Take a Chance?

(This poll is related to the Certain Loss or Take a Chance To Get Back Even poll).

Through an unfortunate series of events, you are now hanging onto the bottom of the basket of a rapidly rising, pilotless, hot air balloon. The others who were hanging on with you, have since let go, and the last person to do so appears to have broken both legs on impact. You now have to a decision: Let go, and face certain, serious injury; or hang on, in hopes of getting rescued, or the situation improving. You have an okay grip right now, but your arms are tiring, and people on the ground are looking smaller and smaller...

personally, i would rather be dead than horribly disabled and in constant pain.
i would hold on for as long as possible and free fall to my death.

Quote: WongBo

personally, i would rather be dead than horribly disabled and in constant pain.
i would hold on for as long as possible and free fall to my death.

I was just thinking of the same thing, just opposite. You're either going to drop now or later, rescue seems impossible. I would drop facing injury rather than death. But, how long does it take the air to cool enough for it to drop? I would think not very long, without a pilot, so then again, I might take a chance that the balloon drops.

Let go of course.
Chances you'll be rescued within next few minutes are minuscule, if not zero. All you win by hanging on for longer is a greater chance of a more serious injury.
"I'd rather be dead" may be a consolation for some (not for me anyway), but there is no guarantee of that either. If you fall down a few minutes later, you could still stay alive, just a lot worse injured.

I'd climb up into the basket where I'd be safer. It is physically possible to do that, and when injury or death is a possibility, you do whatever you must to avoid it.

Taking this incredibly literally, a rising hot air balloon (let alone a rapidly rising one) will do so for quite a while, far longer than anyone could possibly hope to hang on. I drink a lot of milk, time to put it to use. Bombs away.

As an aside, I experienced something similar that reminds me of this scenario. Long story slightly shorter, I was freestyling my ATV on a motorcross track and was working on a giant table top. 2nd gear topped out had me just making the transfer, so on the next lap, I calculated a mid 3rd gear would be perfect. As I rounded the last corner before the jump, I decided on a whim that a balls out 3rd gear would totally bomb it, so I went for it. Unfortunately, I lost track of my gears and was in 4th. As I reached the top hell for leather in 4th gear, my suspension bottomed out, and as soon as my rear wheels left Earth, I yawed severely sideways. At the peak of my jump, I was about 35 feet in the air, doing close to 50mph, was yawed at least 45 degrees from true, and was going to miss the transfer entirely. In that split second, 1,000 thoughts went through my head. It's amazing how fast the human mind can work when it needs to. Everything was crystal clear, every option completely laid out in the span of a tenth of a second. My instinct was to bail; I already had brought my right leg completely over the seat and was ready to let go without even realizing it. In that tick, a blink of an eye, I realized doing so was certainly going to break something. An ankle at best - ankles, legs, arms and wrist at worst. In that same tick, I knew hanging on was going to be a brutal wreck, but I had the ATV suspension to take the worst lick. The wreck that ensued was going to be random. Definite break, random chance...I brought my leg back over the seat and braced for impact. Complete destruction, the worst wreck anyone at the track had ever seen. Additionally, I had just cut the cast off my broken wrist that week. 5 minutes later, I finished my calm-down smoke, bent some pieces of my quad back to true, and kept on riding.

In situations like this, thinking isn't possible, at least not in the way we just thought about the scenario. Instinct takes over. Surface fears of injury or death don't matter, how your wired deep down is the deciding factor.

climbing into the basket is not an option
the options are let go or hold on.

Quote: WongBo

climbing into the basket is not an option
the options are let go or hold on.

Why is it not an option? Nothing in the original post ruled this out. I'm basing my answer on what a likely real world situation would be. Hot air balloon baskets are not huge, and usually have robe handles on the bottom (for ballast?). It's entirely possible to use them to help climb up into the basket where your chances of avoiding injury or death are significantly better.

I reject this WOV Kobayashi Maru test! It is possible to win out of this scenario!

Quote: Ayecarumba

...people on the ground are looking smaller and smaller...

It's too late then.

But if climbing or damaging the balloon is excluded, the situation as described pits almost certain death versus certain death.

Quote: weaselman

Chances you'll be rescued within next few minutes are minuscule, if not zero.

I guess the balloon could be sufficiently damaged with firearms to bring it down (it's not a zeppelin, it's sustained by pressure). But if anyone was going to do it, they'd probably have already begun.

Quote: Toes14

I'd climb up into the basket where I'd be safer. It is physically possible to do that, and when injury or death is a possibility, you do whatever you must to avoid it.

Don't you know you're not supposed to offer rational alternatives to contrived hypotheticals? ;)

" Don't you know you're not supposed to offer rational alternatives to contrived hypotheticals? ;) "

You are facing the possibility of a 3 day suspension.

Quote:

Through an unfortunate series of events, you are now hanging onto the bottom of the basket of a rapidly rising, pilotless, hot air balloon. The others who were hanging on with you, have since let go, and the last person to do so appears to have broken both legs on impact. You now have to a decision: Let go, and face certain, serious injury; or hang on, in hopes of getting rescued, or the situation improving. You have an okay grip right now, but your arms are tiring, and people on the ground are looking smaller and smaller...

...could we add a suitcase in the basket with a million dollars in it?

Ah, just kidding.

Actually, I was wondering if this was going to be one of those, "How do you tell if the guy with the Ace of Spades in his pocket has already let go by the color of his hat?" or something similar

Thanks for the responses. I find it very interesting that as of this moment the voting is 7-2 in favor of hanging on (with the odds of death increasing quickly), while on the "Take a loss or Risk more to get even" thread, eveyone voted "take the loss". Why the reluctance to take the loss (certain injury), when the other option is quickly turning to "certain death"?

I think Face hit it (literally..) on the head. Our brains work quite differently when we have to make quick, life/death/injury decisions, versus having time to evaluate each outcome. I agree that our natural tendency is to underweigh the longer term negative ramifications of our choices, especially when we are under pressure to make quick decisions.

You presented a real-life situation where one choice is about 80% death and 20% permanent disability (likely quadriplegic, extrapolating from the last guy), and the other choice offers opportunities for rescue.

My decision personally would depend a lot on whether I'm set to balloon over NRA Annual Meeting or over Woodstock.
Seeing how I'd attend the former but never the latter, it did color my decision.


It's different from abstract "take a loss or take your chances".