A video currently going viral in which two men’s attempt to playfully throw a friend overboard offers an important lesson in physics.
It starts out optimistically: with a countdown presaging a splash as two men get ready to toss a woman from the roof of a boat. Only it doesn’t work out so well; at the last minute—when she’s already in flight—one of the guys tries to reel her in with an arm hooked around her waist. All this does is send her falling toward a railing. Luckily for all involved, her upper arm connects with the railing instead of her neck — which very nearly could have killed her.