How did Sherlock Holmes survive falling over the Reichenbach falls in A Game of Shadows?

Question

How did Sherlock Holmes survive falling over the Reichenbach falls in A Game of Shadows?

Answer 1

Well there are alot more unbelievable stunts and scenes in movies, so you have to just accept that its a movie, in reality he would have died infact his spine and leg bones would probably have been reduced to ashes im going to judge that waterfall was like 300 feet at least, and if he did survive the fall he would drown because his spine and legs would definitely be broken.



But it is a movie and movies most of the time arent very realistic thats why they are movies

Answer 2

As for surviving underwater he took Mycroft's breathing device. But if you mean the impact of the fall itself then read this portion I copied from the film's trivia page on IMDB (A person falling onto water from a great height would be killed by the impact, so an oxygen supply would be of no benefit. It would be equivalent to falling on concrete. However water at the base of a waterfall is highly aerated and therefore softer. (Divers practicing from high platforms often use aerated water in case of errors). It is possible to survive a fall into the base of a waterfall.)

Answer 3

Well he did survive having a giant fishhook trough his arm... I think Hollywood often stretches the human capabilities but for all we know, the water may have been really deep and sort of warm? Haha I don't know- good point. He did have the little oxygen tank though :)

Answer 4

That is a good observation

Answer 5

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Answer 6

the breathing apparatus Holmes had saved him because he was only breathing with his mouth not his nose.As for Moriarty, he died because Holmes and Moriarty fell in two directions Holmes hit the water, and Moriarty hit the rocks below the water,leaving Holmes alive.

in the book named 'the return of sherlock holmes'

it is quoted as follows

"No, Watson, I never was in it. My note to you was absolutely genuine. I had little doubt that I had come to the end of my career when I perceived the somewhat sinister figure of the late Professor Moriarty standing upon the narrow pathway which led to safety. I read an inexorable purpose in his gray eyes. I exchanged some remarks with him, therefore, and obtained his courteous permission to write the short note which you afterwards received. I left it with my cigarette-box and my stick, and I walked along the pathway, Moriarty still at my heels. When I reached the end I stood at bay. He drew no weapon, but he rushed at me and threw his long arms around me. He knew that his own game was up, and was only anxious to revenge himself upon me. We tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of baritsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds, and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went. With my face over the brink, I saw him fall for a long way. Then he struck a rock, bounded off, and splashed into the water."



I listened with amazement to this explanation, which Holmes delivered between the puffs of his cigarette.



"But the tracks!" I cried. "I saw, with my own eyes, that two went down the path and none returned."



"It came about in this way. The instant that the Professor had disappeared, it struck me what a really extraordinarily lucky chance Fate had placed in my way. I knew that Moriarty was not the only man who had sworn my death. There were at least three others whose desire for vengeance upon me would only be increased by the death of their leader. They were all most dangerous men. One or other would certainly get me. On the other hand, if all the world was convinced that I was dead they would take liberties, these men, they would soon lay themselves open, and sooner or later I could destroy them. Then it would be time for me to announce that I was still in the land of the living. So rapidly does the brain act that I believe I had thought this all out before Professor Moriarty had reached the bottom of the Reichenbach Fall.



"I stood up and examined the rocky wall behind me. In your picturesque account of the matter, which I read with great interest some months later, you assert that the wall was sheer. That was not literally true. A few small footholds presented themselves, and there was some indication of a ledge. The cliff is so high that to climb it all was an obvious impossibility, and it was equally impossible to make my way along the wet path without leaving some tracks. I might, it is true, have reversed my boots, as I have done on similar occasions, but the sight of three sets of tracks in one direction would certainly have suggested a deception. On the whole, then, it was best that I should risk the climb. It was not a pleasant business, Watson. The fall roared beneath me. I am not a fanciful person, but I give you my word that I seemed to hear Moriarty's voice screaming at me out of the abyss. A mistake would have been fatal. More than once, as tufts of grass came out in my hand or my foot slipped in the wet notches of the rock, I thought that I was gone. But I struggled upward, and at last I reached a ledge several feet deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could lie unseen, in the most perfect comfort. There I was stretched, when you, my dear Watson, and all your following were investigating in the most sympathetic and inefficient manner the circumstances of my death.



"At last, when you had all formed your inevitable and totally erroneous conclusions, you departed for the hotel, and I was left alone. I had imagined that I had reached the end of my adventures, but a very unexpected occurrence showed me that there were surprises still in store for me. A huge rock, falling from above, boomed past me, struck the path, and bounded over into the chasm. For an instant I thought that it was an accident, but a moment later, looking up, I saw a man's head against the darkening sky, and another stone struck the very ledge upon which I was stretched, within a foot of my head. Of course, the meaning of this was obvious. Moriarty had not been alone. A confederate—and even that one glance had told me how dangerous a man that confederate was—had kept guard while the Professor had attacked me. From a distance, unseen by me, he had been a witness of his friend's death and of my escape. He had waited, and then making his way round to the top of the cliff, he had endeavoured to succeed where his comrade had failed.



"I did not take long to think about it, Watson. Again I saw that grim face look over the cliff, and I knew that it was the precursor of another stone. I scrambled down on to the path. I don't think I could have done it in cold blood. It was a hundred times more difficult than getting up. But I had no time to think of the danger, for another stone sang past me as I hung by my hands from the edge of the ledge. Halfway down I slipped, but, by the blessing of God, I landed, torn and bleeding, upon the path. I took to my heels, did ten miles over the mountains in the darkness, and a week later I found myself in Florence, with the certainty that no one in the world knew what had become of me.

Answer 7

It could be that what we saw at the end of the movie isn't really what happened but only what Watson saw. In the Sherlock Holmes television series starring Jeremy Brett there was an extremely similar scene. Holmes and Moriarti went over the falls and both seemingly died, but that was only through Watson's eyes, only Moriarti went over in reality.



The other possibility is that Holmes fell into the water at an angle that wouldn't break his back and he was able to breathe using Microft's device and swim to shore.

Answer 8

He had that breathing device and its just a movie

Answer 9

Dont trip

Answer 10

Okay, first off, to answer the question of how he would have survived, we need to consider what are the leading possible causes of mortality in falls from waterfalls.



First: the freezing cold water. Though the temperature shock can cause cardiac arrest on impact, this is not an enormous concern for someone who is fairly young and without an underlying heart condition. Since (as per the dates on the gravestone) Holmes was 37, and certainly someone who led an active lifestyle, we can safely assume his heart could indeed take the strain.

The other and more prevalent danger is the human Cold-Shock Reflex, which causes hyperventilation (and immediate gasping of course) in response to the temperature change.

Gasping in water is the obvious danger. Hyperventilation is the more insidious one, robbing the body of oxygen that it desperately needs, and causing exhaustion quickly.

In any case. Cold-shock reflex is the number one killer out there for any kind of plunge into cold water, but is entirely preventable so long as one remembers to suppress the reflex. Not easy but perfectly feasible, so long as you're not too busy panicking. Holmes definitely wasn't.

Of course we've all heard of hypothermia, but it does not set in as quickly as might be imagined. The US Marine Corps gives about 15 minutes for hypothermia to set in, on average, in freezing water, and though with an already serious injury, Holmes would not have been on the high end of that scale, again, getting out of the water in that time is possible.



Second: Post-impact conditions.

Unlike when one hits standing water from a great height (which is about as bad as hitting concrete) water near the base of a waterfall is thoroughly whipped with air and so provides a comparatively soft landing. The good news is that one does not get killed by the impact with the surface. The bad news is that it is impossible to float (and near impossible to swim) in this kind of water, and once submerged, even in the presence of daylight it is pitch-black because of the light blocking properties of the microscopic air bubbles. Adding to this the fact that the currents -and the impact- rob a person of any sense of direction, it is usually impossible to break surface before drowning, and worse, attempting to do so either does nothing measurable, or brings a swimmer back into danger as the surface currents tend to flow towards the falls.

If a person however knows their physics (Holmes did), can stay calm long enough to regain orientation (he did have a pretty cool head after all), can manage not to drown while attempting to do so (hence the usefulness of the oxygen device), then it is possible to get carried away from the waterfall by swimming diagonally DOWNWARD and away from the fall, where eventually one hits a deeper (and always outbound) current.



Third: Impact.

Okay, so now we know that the impact with the frothy water is not so bad, but what about rocks?

The greatest danger is right beneath the falls (because of rocks that get washed over and go straight down) and if anyone noticed, when Holmes did break away from Moriarty, he used the momentum to push away from the base of the falls. Pure luck? Possibly. More likely, though his eyes were closed, he was probably keeping track of their relative positions thought orientational perception, and broke away at the optimal time to get out from right under the falls, but not far enough to hit water that would have had too little air to allow for a shot at surviving the surface impact.



So, in summary, Holmes avoided the largest danger of hitting rock, used the oxygen device to breathe underwater until he could regain his bearings, and then probably swam for a current that he could ride away from the falls, and finally surfaced, then exited the water and found some kind of shelter before freezing to death, or was found downstream.

It is possible that he used the device just before impact (so that when the cold-shock reflex was triggered, he would not have drowned), but unlikely, since the risk of losing it would have been far too great.

More likely, he took a deep breath before impact, held it, suppressing the initial gasping phase of the cold shock reflex, and then used the device underwater.



Easy to survive? Hell no!

Possible, yes, especially if you got a mind like Sherlock Holmes did which never ever shuts down, and nerves of steel.

Answer 11

First of all he fell into water so the damages is a lot less, and some studies have found out that if when you're falling you Completely relax your body, you won't die from the fall. And when Sherlock Holmes was falling, if you pay attention, he closed his eyes.

Answer 12

well this is a movie where everything is fiction. the point of movies is to seem real just like Red when Bruce Willis stepped out of a moving car on foot and the tail end missed him by a hair