The disease to go ‘viral’...

[Rajan Parrikar]

...claims two more.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6330703/Couple-fell-3-000-feet-deaths-Yosemites-Taft-Point-identified-travel-bloggers.html

[RSL]

Selfies! Step back a little so the picture will show how deep the canyon is behind us.

[Rajan Parrikar]

Moments before -

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=B-OckVvgUso

[Rob C]

It's sad, but railings or not, you can't protect people from themselves.

Fortunately for me, my sense of self-preservation is in direct proportion to my fear of heights. I often wonder, as I walk along the local marina during the winter months, what in hell I'd actuallly do if I saw a young kid fall off the pontoons into the sea.

I swam very strongly when young, loved every moment of it. Today, two heart-attacks later, I think the temperature shock would, first, paralyse me and, secondly, give me my third event, creating two people needing rescue instead of one. That brings me not one iota closer to knowing what I would actually do.

Anybody here faced such situations themselves?

Rob

[texshooter]

High Place Phenomenon (HPP) is a strange but real psychological occurrence that may explain why some people fall like this. Falls from great heights are not always accidental nor suicidal.  The wind probably blew this couple over, but could it be HPP?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3678030/A-troubling-compulsion-sounds-bizarre-women-irrational-urge-jump-high-places.html

https://bigthink.com/stephen-johnson/study-explains-that-strange-urge-to-jump-when-near-cliffs

[32BT]

Google "Glass walkway Tianmen mountain" and see hours and hours of psychology at work, including the fact that people can entertain themselves to tears just watching this stuff.

[Rob C]

High Place Phenomenon (HPP) is a strange but real psychological occurrence that may explain why some people fall like this. Falls from great heights are not always accidental nor suicidal.  The wind probably blew this couple over, but could it be HPP?

https://bigthink.com/stephen-johnson/study-explains-that-strange-urge-to-jump-when-near-cliffs

No, I never liked being in the vicinity of heights, but I do recall that when I was perhaps ten years old, my mother and I would sometimes stand on the upstairs balcony of home, lean on the balustrade and gaze out in the moonlight at the mountains (Eastern Ghats) a few miles distant. In the silence, that light, the millions of stars so clearly visible overhead in the unpoluted air of 40s India, we used to have what we called "flying nights" when the feeling was so strong that one could just take off and touch those distant hills. She was also a romantic... but a more determinedly brave one than I! So many people I miss.

;-)

[KLaban]

When I was a very young boy I was dangled in mid air off a tower block balcony. Never recovered. Now I get dizzy standing on a shag-pile rug. The strange thing is though when I'm in a plane I always have the window seat and love looking out of the window.

Go figure. 

[Paulo Bizarro]

Another sad story, but it is still not sure whether they fell while attempting a selfie.

I think it was a couple of years ago when a Polish couple died in Cabo da Roca in Portugal, the westernmost point in continental Europe. Popular with tourists too.

[RSL]

When I was a very young boy I was dangled in mid air off a tower block balcony. Never recovered. Now I get dizzy standing on a shag-pile rug. The strange thing is though when I'm in a plane I always have the window seat and love looking out of the window.

Go figure.

I can figure, Keith. I've been afraid of heights all my life. Didn't even used to be able to climb the forestry fire tower across the lake from our summer cottage. But I flew fighters and a bunch of other airplanes for ten years and loved it. It's different when you're in it instead of on top of it.

[KLaban]

I can figure, Keith. I've been afraid of heights all my life. Didn't even used to be able to climb the forestry fire tower across the lake from our summer cottage. But I flew fighters and a bunch of other airplanes for ten years and loved it. It's different when you're in it instead of on top of it.

Makes sense, Russ.

[MattBurt]

I love high places and always have (much to the horror of my poor mother). As a kid I climbed anything I could which most of the time was trees. I jumped off our garage roof, but that was to try out my umbrella theory. Only did that once.
I still like mountain summits and cliff edges but not with many people around. I have a fear someone will try that gag where they pretend to push you but have it go wrong.
I've thought about jumping but not like contemplating if I should jump, more like I wonder what it would be like or what the people who do jump think and experience.
If I was young now I'd probably be drawn to base jumping or wingsuit flying. Probably a good thing I'm too old for that kind of stuff now.

[Chris Kern]

My wife is a mountain goat: sure-footed, no matter how precarious the platform where she is standing appears to me, and entirely devoid of any fear of heights.  She scared the hell out of me once during a visit to Sandia Crest by informing me she just wanted to "look around a bit," and then disappearing into a rocky void so steep it made me dizzy just looking in that direction.

I suffer from vertigo.  We climbed the long staircase on Lombard Street in San Francisco one morning some years ago and I got so dizzy trying to walk back down the stairs that it took quite a few hours for everything to stop spinning.  But I love looking down and shooting pictures from high perches: tall buildings, observation towers, and aircraft—especially small ones that fly low and slow.

[marvpelkey]

Used to be quite OK with heights. When I was much younger I even owned a hang-glider at one time and have sky-dived (dove?) a couple times.

A number of years ago, when I was on the job, I was patrolling over a local bridge around 3 am one very quiet evening. Had just done a u-turn and was making my way back over when I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye (not sure even today how my mind interpreted everything as it was just a blur/instinct). I slammed on the brakes, leapt from the car, over a cement barrier separating the road and sidewalk, two running steps across the sidewalk and a semi leap forward over the railing and grabbed a 16 yr old girl who was just letting go of the cable to jump the 200 feet to the water below.

I didn't have a chance to broadcast my situation before exiting the car or on the mike between the car and railing as I didn't want to startle her and have her leap before I got to her. So, the problem I then faced as a result, was I had both arms around her and the cable, was semi hanging over the rail and couldn't release my grip to get to my mike. On top of that, she started to curse me and fight like a cat, first to get out of my grip and jump, then tried to pull me with her. Although it was probably only minutes, we fought and struggled for what seemed like a week. Funny enough, my marked pc was parked in the curb lane with the door wide open and no-one in the 20-30 passing cars bothered to stop. Finally a cabbie stopped and helped me drag her over the railing.

Since that night, me and heights do not get along very well. At all.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Before visiiting Yosemite, I recommend watching the movie "Free Solo" about Alex Honnold, the first person ever to free solo climb Yosemite's 3000-foot high El Capitan wall, which is roughly across from Taft Point. Watching the film is much safer than getting too near the edge of a cliff in windy weather.

[MattBurt]

Before visiiting Yosemite, I recommend watching the movie "Free Solo" about Alex Honnold, the first person ever to free solo climb Yosemite's 3000-foot high El Capitan wall, which is roughly across from Taft Point. Watching the film is much safer than getting too near the edge of a cliff in windy weather.

I'm really excited to watch that. Jimmy Chin is my hero!
If you haven't seen it, their other film, Meru is really good.

[HSakols]

I still haven't seen Free Solo, but I look forward to seeing it.   

When I'm playing around on high places I try and tie in.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I'm really excited to watch that. Jimmy Chin is my hero!
If you haven't seen it, their other film, Meru is really good.

I haven't seen Meru yet, but Jimmy Chin and his crew are amazing, and highly skilled climbers (using safety equipment) as well. One crew member is in the valley with camera on a tripod, so he can get overviews from time to time. A few times even he has to turn his head aside because what Honnold is doing is so scary.

[LesPalenik]

I still haven't seen Free Solo, but I look forward to seeing it.   

When I'm playing around on high places I try and tie in.

That would for sure scare all grizzlies away.

[Peter McLennan]

"Meru" is fantastic.  Both as entertainment and as a production tour-de-force.

I've spent a lot of time sitting in the doorway of various helicopters, and like others here I hate standing on the edge of heights but had no problems with sitting in the helicopter and looking past my feet at the ground a thousand feet below.

Strangely, when hovering at altitude, the height fright returned.