So, whenever I watch a movie or play a game where characters get killed by falling off a building or from a high spot, I can't help but wonder, how does that fall kill you? I mean, what specifically causes death? I've tried to find a decent explanation via Google, but I can't seem to find one.

You obviously know the impact of a fall can kill you, so i'm assuming you're talking about being killed for simply falling.

I think developers just save the player time from a user experience POV and instakill you so you don't have to watch yourself fall and then be killed on impact. Like in Halo.

Just to add, that in games were your death is less frequent (Skyrim) it makes more sense to watch you die upon impact.

*Sigh* I meant in reality how does the impact of the fall kill. I thought that was obvious here.

Well, really it depends on how you land and where you land. People have been known, for example, to survive from falling out of an airplane without a parachute. And other times people die from falling one story.

But my guess would be simple blunt-force trauma, in many cases.

The same way a car crash kills you, you're just moving vertically instead of horizontally.

The force of the impact causes damage to internal organs, you need most of those to live. If they get too damaged then you no live no more.

Ah. Gotcha.

Well, think about it like this!

Falling to your death is just a vertical way of crashing into a wall at a very fast speed.

Therefore, you'd break all your bones, crush vital organs, rupture arteries and all sorts of nasty stuff. Broken and fractured bones being dislodged around your inner workings can do quite the damage too.

EDIT: Ninja'd by the Waste Ranger

Yeah, I've read those stories, but what is it about the impact causes death? Does the fall increase the 'weight impact' (Excuse my lack of technical term, but hopefully you'll get what I mean) from the speed cause you to rupture your brain/organs or something?

I know it sounds morbid, but I just find it fascinating the effects of changes in surrounding can cause you to die (IE whatever happens when you fall and hit the ground)

The fascia that holds your organs in place is not made of kleenex...but it isn't steel mesh either. Sudden stop, internal organ shifts, blood vessels connected to major organ sheer off, you bleed out. If the organ in question is the heart and the vessel in question is the aorta you bleed out really fast.

Option B...skull stops suddenly, fast moving brain hits inside of skull...bad for brain.

Option C...impact breaks bones and drives bone fragments through various vital components.

We're pretty fragile when you break us down, some people (especially the elderly) can suffer serious injury or die from falling from a standing position. The actual cause of death varies by the type of fall (height, landing surface etc.), our body type (if you're fat, frail, etc.) and the point of impact. I'm guessing the most common causes of death from falling are crushing vital organs, snapping your neck/spine, or a broken bone piercing a vital organ and killing you.

Well as you fall you build up kinetic energy and upon on contact with a surface that energy you have must be released. The release of this energy is violent and causes damage to your body that in most cases cannot be repaired. In the release of the energy bones are broken/crushed and organs ruptured.

Having the spine suddenly take a few hundred pounds of pressure or moving into your brain.

One of my mother's friends died from a fall of a few feet she was around 80 though.

It's the change in velocity or deceleration as you hit the surface resulting in force acting upon your body. Say you hit a flat surface face down, the very first part to make contact will decelerate very quickly and come to a stop, however all your body behind is still moving at speed and has yet decelerate, as it does so forces are generated which your body is not designed to cope with.

As a side note when I was young and silly I used to do Canyoning and any fall from higher than 5m was called the coffin zone.

Newton's third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." This is physics 101, ring any bells?

Basically if you weigh 150 pounds and you hit the ground at a hundred miles per hour, it will hit back with comparable force. The ground can take a hit like that; a person normally can't.

Another way that I haven't seen mentioned here, is the shock of the impact(ie, the sudden onrush of pain causing your heart to stop). Or at least that's what the doctors told me should have killed me when I fell 40 feet off a cliff and crushed parts of my spine. It was just the alcohol that was in my system that prevented it.

But interestingly enough if you can disperse that energy you can survive a long fall. I saw on the news a guy had on a flight suit (those suits that a lot of base jumpers or trick parachuters use) and no parachute land in a large pile of cardboard boxes and walk away unharmed.

So... Keep yourself just a bit drunk at all times for safety's sake.