Art Deco elevators at the Empire State Building. (Image by Fletcher6.)

Thanks to Newmark’s Door for pointing me in the direction of Robert Krulwich’s NPR blog which reveals, with the help of science writer Mary Roach, the best way to survive if you are in an elevator that plunges. An excerpt:

“What should you do? Jump? Squat? Lie Down? You want to know before it happens because when the moment comes you are not going to have time to go to the library.

Here’s an answer: It popped up in a footnote on the bottom of page 133 in Mary Roach’s latest (and very charming) book, Packing for Mars.

[T]he best way to survive in a falling elevator is to lie down on your back. Sitting is bad but better than standing, because buttocks are nature’s safety foam. Muscle and fat are compressible: they help absorb the G forces of the impact.

As for jumping up in the air just before the elevator hits bottom, it only delays the inevitable. Plus, then you might be squatting when you hit. In a 1960 Civil Aeromedical Research Institute study, squatting on a drop platform caused ‘severe knee pain’ at relatively low G forces. ‘Apparently the flexor muscles … acted as a fulcrum to pry open the knee joint,’ the researchers noted with interest and no apparent remorse.”