Key bridge in Baltimore collapses after cargo ship crashes into it

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Even if you got out of the car, you are in the middle of a huge river! How are you swimming to safety? What about the infant in the car seat?

I used to drive my kids back and forth from VA to MD several times a week and would keep their life jackets in the car because I am a little paranoid. I'm also a bridge engineer and have an unnatural fear of such an incident. We don't go as frequently anymore, but I'm gonna put them back in the car.

that was an unexpected plot twist

You'd think as an engineer you would have an understanding of the rarity of this kind of thing happening. I mean, does someone have the statistics on how many people are killed annually by bridge collapses? I'm guessing a million other things rank much higher.

I believe these are government employees that have never had to make a cost-benefit or risk analysis. Remember, if it saves just one person...

What are the chances of a life jacket saving anyone in the event of your car falling off a bridge into water? You have a few seconds, at most, to unbuckle car seats/seat belts, open car doors and windows, put on life jacket for yourself and your kids, all while violently falling through the air/being bumped around the inside of the vehicle, potentially w debris and/or other vehicles hitting you and becoming submerged in water. I’m just trying to understand how you would even be able to/have time to get a life jacket on in this scenario.

I could definitely see a market for a car seat with a built in airbag or other floatation device that allows the car seat to surface to the air on its own. Maybe similar to the airbags used by backcountry skiers to survive avalanches.

Car is filling with water, you get to the back seat and unlatch the car seat from the anchors. Once the pressure equalizes, you open the backdoor, activate the airbag, and push out your kid's car seat (with kid still strapped in). Kid floats to the surface. This also allows the adults to better focus on their own safety once they escape the underwater vehicle and don't have to worry about trying to surface while holding a squirmy kid.

In the demonstration video posted on the second or third page, the pressure didn't equalize enough to open the door until well after the driver ran out of air. They said the car would essentially need to be resting on the bottom before that happens. That's a long time in deep water.

FYI, here's the WaPo article from this morning: https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/car-underwater-escape-bridge-collapse/

All cars should carry a small scuba tank. It could be checked as part of the annual inspection. Right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if you got out of the car, you are in the middle of a huge river! How are you swimming to safety? What about the infant in the car seat?

I used to drive my kids back and forth from VA to MD several times a week and would keep their life jackets in the car because I am a little paranoid. I'm also a bridge engineer and have an unnatural fear of such an incident. We don't go as frequently anymore, but I'm gonna put them back in the car.

that was an unexpected plot twist

You'd think as an engineer you would have an understanding of the rarity of this kind of thing happening. I mean, does someone have the statistics on how many people are killed annually by bridge collapses? I'm guessing a million other things rank much higher.

I believe these are government employees that have never had to make a cost-benefit or risk analysis. Remember, if it saves just one person...

What are the chances of a life jacket saving anyone in the event of your car falling off a bridge into water? You have a few seconds, at most, to unbuckle car seats/seat belts, open car doors and windows, put on life jacket for yourself and your kids, all while violently falling through the air/being bumped around the inside of the vehicle, potentially w debris and/or other vehicles hitting you and becoming submerged in water. I’m just trying to understand how you would even be able to/have time to get a life jacket on in this scenario.

I could definitely see a market for a car seat with a built in airbag or other floatation device that allows the car seat to surface to the air on its own. Maybe similar to the airbags used by backcountry skiers to survive avalanches.

Car is filling with water, you get to the back seat and unlatch the car seat from the anchors. Once the pressure equalizes, you open the backdoor, activate the airbag, and push out your kid's car seat (with kid still strapped in). Kid floats to the surface. This also allows the adults to better focus on their own safety once they escape the underwater vehicle and don't have to worry about trying to surface while holding a squirmy kid.

In the demonstration video posted on the second or third page, the pressure didn't equalize enough to open the door until well after the driver ran out of air. They said the car would essentially need to be resting on the bottom before that happens. That's a long time in deep water.

FYI, here's the WaPo article from this morning: https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/car-underwater-escape-bridge-collapse/

And a child would definitely be out of oxygen by the time pressure equalized and likely dead. Definitely dead by the the time the seat floats to the top.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if you got out of the car, you are in the middle of a huge river! How are you swimming to safety? What about the infant in the car seat?

I used to drive my kids back and forth from VA to MD several times a week and would keep their life jackets in the car because I am a little paranoid. I'm also a bridge engineer and have an unnatural fear of such an incident. We don't go as frequently anymore, but I'm gonna put them back in the car.

that was an unexpected plot twist

You'd think as an engineer you would have an understanding of the rarity of this kind of thing happening. I mean, does someone have the statistics on how many people are killed annually by bridge collapses? I'm guessing a million other things rank much higher.

I believe these are government employees that have never had to make a cost-benefit or risk analysis. Remember, if it saves just one person...

What are the chances of a life jacket saving anyone in the event of your car falling off a bridge into water? You have a few seconds, at most, to unbuckle car seats/seat belts, open car doors and windows, put on life jacket for yourself and your kids, all while violently falling through the air/being bumped around the inside of the vehicle, potentially w debris and/or other vehicles hitting you and becoming submerged in water. I’m just trying to understand how you would even be able to/have time to get a life jacket on in this scenario.

I could definitely see a market for a car seat with a built in airbag or other floatation device that allows the car seat to surface to the air on its own. Maybe similar to the airbags used by backcountry skiers to survive avalanches.

Car is filling with water, you get to the back seat and unlatch the car seat from the anchors. Once the pressure equalizes, you open the backdoor, activate the airbag, and push out your kid's car seat (with kid still strapped in). Kid floats to the surface. This also allows the adults to better focus on their own safety once they escape the underwater vehicle and don't have to worry about trying to surface while holding a squirmy kid.

By the time the pressure has equalized enough to open the door, you and your kid would have probably run out of oxygen. Most people, Especially kids, arent going to be able to hold their breath that long.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if you got out of the car, you are in the middle of a huge river! How are you swimming to safety? What about the infant in the car seat?

I used to drive my kids back and forth from VA to MD several times a week and would keep their life jackets in the car because I am a little paranoid. I'm also a bridge engineer and have an unnatural fear of such an incident. We don't go as frequently anymore, but I'm gonna put them back in the car.

that was an unexpected plot twist

You'd think as an engineer you would have an understanding of the rarity of this kind of thing happening. I mean, does someone have the statistics on how many people are killed annually by bridge collapses? I'm guessing a million other things rank much higher.

I believe these are government employees that have never had to make a cost-benefit or risk analysis. Remember, if it saves just one person...

What are the chances of a life jacket saving anyone in the event of your car falling off a bridge into water? You have a few seconds, at most, to unbuckle car seats/seat belts, open car doors and windows, put on life jacket for yourself and your kids, all while violently falling through the air/being bumped around the inside of the vehicle, potentially w debris and/or other vehicles hitting you and becoming submerged in water. I’m just trying to understand how you would even be able to/have time to get a life jacket on in this scenario.

I could definitely see a market for a car seat with a built in airbag or other floatation device that allows the car seat to surface to the air on its own. Maybe similar to the airbags used by backcountry skiers to survive avalanches.

Car is filling with water, you get to the back seat and unlatch the car seat from the anchors. Once the pressure equalizes, you open the backdoor, activate the airbag, and push out your kid's car seat (with kid still strapped in). Kid floats to the surface. This also allows the adults to better focus on their own safety once they escape the underwater vehicle and don't have to worry about trying to surface while holding a squirmy kid.

How many times a year would this be used? What would be the additional cost and development time for such a product?

It’s a dumb idea because by the time you can open the door, a kid would be done. And likely you would be done too.

[Anonymous]

It seems as though, if you have time to do one thing while the car is falling or as it's starting to sink, the thing to do would be to open the door.

Not that that would help from that kind of height. But if you fell off a lower bridge.

[Anonymous]

Someone should push a car over the top of the Bay Bridge just to see what would happen.

[Anonymous]

I think people have a very hard time accepting the fact that there are sometimes tragic situations in which you will likely die and be unable to save your loved ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if you got out of the car, you are in the middle of a huge river! How are you swimming to safety? What about the infant in the car seat?

I used to drive my kids back and forth from VA to MD several times a week and would keep their life jackets in the car because I am a little paranoid. I'm also a bridge engineer and have an unnatural fear of such an incident. We don't go as frequently anymore, but I'm gonna put them back in the car.

Where do you store them? Life jackets aren't small, and it's not like having them in the trunk is helpful. I am truly trying to wrap my head around how this would work. So car goes off bridge, you have all windows rolled up so you have plenty of time to unbuckle the kids from their car seats and get them into the life jackets and then, are you manually rolling down your car's windows? Do you have a 1982 Civic?

And they are doing this with an opened airbag in their face and pressing them against their seat. The force of a car dropping from that height onto the water would definitely open the air bags. So, PP would have to survive the impact, unlock their seat belt under the airbag, and climb into the back seat while fighting the airbag to get into the back seat before they could even start to work on getting their child out of the carseat and all of that before finding the lifevests and putting them on both her and her child. Not very realistic. that this would work in this instance.

That said, those who open their windows are also not accounting for handling the airbag while trying to get out of their car. With the water coming in, they'll only have seconds to fight the airbag, get the seatbelt undone and exit the window, figure up from down and start to swim in the right direction, while dodging debris from the bridge that collapsed on top of them.

None of these "precautions" are very likely to help in the event of such an accident.

They’d also have to get both kids in life jackets out of a window.

Yep. In planes you're told not to inflate the life jacket until outside.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if you got out of the car, you are in the middle of a huge river! How are you swimming to safety? What about the infant in the car seat?

I used to drive my kids back and forth from VA to MD several times a week and would keep their life jackets in the car because I am a little paranoid. I'm also a bridge engineer and have an unnatural fear of such an incident. We don't go as frequently anymore, but I'm gonna put them back in the car.

that was an unexpected plot twist

You'd think as an engineer you would have an understanding of the rarity of this kind of thing happening. I mean, does someone have the statistics on how many people are killed annually by bridge collapses? I'm guessing a million other things rank much higher.

I believe these are government employees that have never had to make a cost-benefit or risk analysis. Remember, if it saves just one person...

What are the chances of a life jacket saving anyone in the event of your car falling off a bridge into water? You have a few seconds, at most, to unbuckle car seats/seat belts, open car doors and windows, put on life jacket for yourself and your kids, all while violently falling through the air/being bumped around the inside of the vehicle, potentially w debris and/or other vehicles hitting you and becoming submerged in water. I’m just trying to understand how you would even be able to/have time to get a life jacket on in this scenario.

I could definitely see a market for a car seat with a built in airbag or other floatation device that allows the car seat to surface to the air on its own. Maybe similar to the airbags used by backcountry skiers to survive avalanches.

Car is filling with water, you get to the back seat and unlatch the car seat from the anchors. Once the pressure equalizes, you open the backdoor, activate the airbag, and push out your kid's car seat (with kid still strapped in). Kid floats to the surface. This also allows the adults to better focus on their own safety once they escape the underwater vehicle and don't have to worry about trying to surface while holding a squirmy kid.

In the demonstration video posted on the second or third page, the pressure didn't equalize enough to open the door until well after the driver ran out of air. They said the car would essentially need to be resting on the bottom before that happens. That's a long time in deep water.

FYI, here's the WaPo article from this morning: https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/tips/car-underwater-escape-bridge-collapse/

All cars should carry a small scuba tank. It could be checked as part of the annual inspection. Right?

And a helicopter rotor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people have a very hard time accepting the fact that there are sometimes tragic situations in which you will likely die and be unable to save your loved ones.

I think it’s one or two posters who read to page 3 and then went crazy responding to every post. The thread has moved past the life jackets poster pages ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Who are these geniuses who think you can open a door or window underwater??

A manual roll-up window would open just fine. Unfortunately, most cars have motorized windows now and the chances of them working when the car is submerged are low to zero.

Ohhhhh your arm strength is greater than tons of water pressure ?
Anything you say David Banner!

Np. So can you NEVER open or break a window (or car door) under water? I see this hammer tools being sold? Or I swear I saw a myth buster episode or something that showed you can do it once the water in the car equalized to that outside of the car? Is that not right?

Because that knowledge is the only thing that makes me not panic on a bridge crossing.

Help a girl out with the knowledge.

WaPo has an article on this today. They said the thing to do is get your seatbelt off and lower your window. Do those things in the first minute. No time to mess around with looking for a tool plus they don’t work.

Also 1000 kgs is a metric ton. Very common unit

Referencing this video, which I trust more than mythbusters - Get out as quickly as possible. Not in the first minute - like the first 5 seconds

Richard Hammond's Underwater Car Challenge | Top Gear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-hADcZ49fE

[Anonymous]

I think people have a very hard time accepting the fact that there are sometimes tragic situations in which you will likely die and be unable to save your loved ones.

Agreed. Some people are just really bad at math. Given the extremely low probability of this sort of thing happening, it just isn't worth the time and expense and effort to try to prepare to deal with it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even if you got out of the car, you are in the middle of a huge river! How are you swimming to safety? What about the infant in the car seat?

I used to drive my kids back and forth from VA to MD several times a week and would keep their life jackets in the car because I am a little paranoid. I'm also a bridge engineer and have an unnatural fear of such an incident. We don't go as frequently anymore, but I'm gonna put them back in the car.

that was an unexpected plot twist

You'd think as an engineer you would have an understanding of the rarity of this kind of thing happening. I mean, does someone have the statistics on how many people are killed annually by bridge collapses? I'm guessing a million other things rank much higher.

I believe these are government employees that have never had to make a cost-benefit or risk analysis. Remember, if it saves just one person...

What are the chances of a life jacket saving anyone in the event of your car falling off a bridge into water? You have a few seconds, at most, to unbuckle car seats/seat belts, open car doors and windows, put on life jacket for yourself and your kids, all while violently falling through the air/being bumped around the inside of the vehicle, potentially w debris and/or other vehicles hitting you and becoming submerged in water. I’m just trying to understand how you would even be able to/have time to get a life jacket on in this scenario.

I could definitely see a market for a car seat with a built in airbag or other floatation device that allows the car seat to surface to the air on its own. Maybe similar to the airbags used by backcountry skiers to survive avalanches.

Car is filling with water, you get to the back seat and unlatch the car seat from the anchors. Once the pressure equalizes, you open the backdoor, activate the airbag, and push out your kid's car seat (with kid still strapped in). Kid floats to the surface. This also allows the adults to better focus on their own safety once they escape the underwater vehicle and don't have to worry about trying to surface while holding a squirmy kid.

This is the reason that this is unfeasible. You can't open the back door with all the pressure of the water trying to push into the car. Even massive bodybuilders couldn't push that hard until the car landed on the bottom. This might work for shallow depth falls, like no more than about 20 feet of depth. The car would reach the bottom before you got into the back seat and unlatched the car seat. But otherwise, it's not really feasible.

[Anonymous]

Any word on survivors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think people have a very hard time accepting the fact that there are sometimes tragic situations in which you will likely die and be unable to save your loved ones.

Any post here where someone dies, particularly a child, there are people who claim that they are, in some way, so responsible that it would never happen to them.