Teen girl uses 'superhuman strength' to lift burning truck off dad and save family

a reply to: interupt42
Plus, he is a Seahawks fan.
Can't expect him to think things out.

originally posted by: Brotherman
a reply to: interupt42
That would imply the tires where still on the truck cause there would be no lifting of shocks otherwise. Dads an idiot for not using jack stands.

When I work out in the bush in Alaska trust me sometimes duct tape has to hold your vehicle together it's not an easy thing when you don't have a store down the street maybe that's all he had because that's what he can afford it had around the house and maybe he didn't have money it's nice and you have money in your rich and you can do whatever you want but in his case he might not of been an idiot

Didn't super man do that when he was a baby?

a reply to: machineintelligence

She's a crossfitter, this was nothing!

I've heard about these kinds of things for years.

I believe it is possible that humans can exhibit apparent super-human strength in times of extreme emotional distress.

I don't feel like speculating about the possible mechanisms of this ability. Suffice it to say that I feel it is plausible.

-dex

a reply to: AK907ICECOLD
Cool story bro, but he has enough money for a house n garage, he wasn't in the bush, jack stands in a garage isn't exactly an uncommon thing to have laying around and they aren't exactly expensive. Its obvious to me he has no business being under a vehicle.

The guy probably didn't have the jack threaded all the way closed n the hydraulics were semi loose causing a little movement to release the pressure, seen it happen before only difference is people I work around general use jack stands or car lifts with locking studs. As I said before the girll probably just used the jack to lift the truck as if it released that way, it would have still been in place to jack it right back up. For a girl saying about joining the service or being an intelligence officer I find it rather disturbing she decides to lift up a truck barefoot in a fire with her bare hands while a machine thats mechanical functionis to lift heavy things like cars or trucks is left unnoticed, out fricken standing if that's a true story.

Did she turn around and in a flash and bang turn into wonder woman?

Depending on exactly how he was under there, the springs of the truck could have assisted in helping her lift the truck.

No doubt She was acting with/had pure Adrenaline running through her veins.I say right on to Her..S&F OP..

Sigh.... Humans are plenty capable of that feat. You see it's not really true when they say a chimpanzee is 3 times stronger than a human or whatever. We actually have more muscle than them (not pound for pound but literally)

The difference lies in whats known as Motor Groups.

Apes have whats known as Large Motor groups. Humans have small motor groups. Essentially Motor Groups are the way nerve bundles communicate to the muscles.

If your Bicep for instance has 1000 Muscle fibers and have a large motor group, regardless of how hard you try you will not be able to have very fine motor control. A detriment if you have advanced sophisticated multi-capable hands that you rely on. Like say a human. But for an Ape with large motor groups. When they tell the bicep to flex it sends the signal to say 500-700 fibers in the muscle. They can't tone it down to say telling the muscle to flex only 200 fibers at a time, and so fine motor control is lost. It's why Apes can't talk. can't write and can't do sophisticated stuff like heart surgery with their hands. They don't have the fine motor control.


Humans are the opposite of the spectrum. We have small motor groups. They act like a car engine limiter on how hard we can "Rev" the muscle or power out put. SO the muscle never will flex more than say 250 fibers out of that thousand at any time. It's the reason we can talk and do sophisticated stuff with our hands.

So the muscle is there and every bit as capable of cranking out the raw power a chimp could. Pound for pound. It just has a neurological limiter placed on it.

However, in moments of dire emergencies. The brain will shut off that limiter and you got the same power as the chimps do. Granted you have the same size bicep. SO even Olympic heavy lifters at maximum strain are only lifting what the limiter allows. if they were in a rage and terrified they could probably lift easily 3 to 4 times their max.

SO yes, this is totally possible.

originally posted by: uktorah
I was in a car crash years ago. Ex was driving (wasn't an ex at the time), but she fell asleep (I was already asleep). I woke up when the roof of the car hit my head repeatedly as the car bounced down the road like an upturned skateboard.

A fire started in the footwell where I was. She tried to undo her seatbelt but it was doing its job and the button wouldn't work. I somehow held her up with one hand, enough to release the tension on the belt and managed to get the button in with the other hand, and the belt retracted.

She got out through the broken window on her side (leaving me in the burning car. Did I mention she's now an ex? Lol)

Strange things do happen.

Lifting a person and lifting a vehicle that weighs as much as two to three dozen people are two totally different things. It'd be a shame if you couldn't unbuckle your lady -- that wouldn't be very manly of you.

Now, not all vehicles are really heavy -- when I was like 11 years old, me and my friend were strong enough to lift a tiny geo metro, when we realized we could do it, we carried the car over a block away and placed it down in a different parking spot just for luls. They are 1800 pounds when fully loaded, but this one must have had weight reductions, for sure.

a reply to: AK907ICECOLD

Trust me i have been poor and my family was on welfare when i was young.for a couple years. I once used my shoelace to get me out of the woods in my jeep when the rear driveshaft bolts snapped off.

So i know about rigging things and not having money, but finding blocks ,rocks, 2x4, etc can be found .


Btw i would consider some of the things i did when i was younger as idiotic heck some even today so i dont really think that makes him fully idiotic. Just that one task.

Hopefully nobody goes full idiot.

Although, perhaps i was a bit harsh but somethings shouldnt be rigged especially at his age.

When i was younger i surely did some stupid things and lived to tell about it, but we are suppose to get wiser as we get older, so i have been told.

a reply to: BASSPLYR
There're other factors in chimp/ape strength than the nervous system. Also that's still a theory and while it's good it needs more work. I do think it's part of it, but only a part. Anyway, the muscles close to the bone are longer and denser in chimps and other apes. Also their bones are very sturdy to support extra loads. If a human were to use all their muscles, they'd literlaly destroy themsevles. So "great feats of strength" are very restricted if ever useful. Other apes are also stronger than chimps, widening the margin. While humans are great apes, we don't have this strength.

Example:
www.nature.com - Chimps - How human are they?...

Animal strength
Chimpanzees are different from humans in several obvious ways, one of which is their sheer physical strength. But why are they so much stronger than us?

The answer isn't just sheer muscle bulk. It's also to do with that fact that their muscles work around five to seven times more efficiently than ours. Studies of human and other primates' jaw muscles show that our muscle fibres are far smaller and weaker than those of our cousins - roughly an eighth the size of those seen in macaques, for example.

The reasons for this remain poorly understood, but one contributing factor is the genes that encode myosin, the protein fibres from which muscles are made. Comparison of human and ape sequences for a myosin gene called MYH16 show that all humans have a mutant version of this gene.

I hear people that do these extraordinary feats tend to die a few years later. As if they used up most of their energy in one giant burst to save someone they cared about. As if they short circuited, burned up inside and then fizzle out.

originally posted by: SRPrime
when I was like 11 years old, me and my friend were strong enough to lift a tiny geo metro, when we realized we could do it, we carried the car over a block away and placed it down in a different parking spot just for luls. They are 1800 pounds when fully loaded, but this one must have had weight reductions, for sure.

sure you did.
was its weight reduced by 1700 lbs?

she picks up the truck AND moves it to the side???
or pulls him out at the same time?
then pulls the truck out? see pic of truck on grass?

a reply to: machineintelligence

This isn't unheard of. When all the muscle fibers are activated at the same time then feats of strength like this are well achievable.

Why is it every time a feel-good story like this (which we could surely use more of these days in the world) comes along, the immediate response seems to be to riddle it with holes and speculate that the individual must be lying or exaggerating for some sort of personal gain... before then also going on to rake the individual over the coals for some less than wise act (such as possibly not using jack stands) to boot?

We're so punitive all the time it seems, as though just waiting for any opportunity to puncture, to censure, to judge. Which, yes, I know is a judgment on my part as well. Sorry for being hypocritical for the sake of making a point I feel compelled to make. Forgive me.

Could they be lying? Sure. But I didn't see anything in the article to suggest hyperbole on their part. Just an account of what they say happened. They never said, "Oh yeah, she completely lifted the truck like it was nothing." It was the article that asserted 'superhuman strength,' not them.

The article also says:

Currently at the US Air Force Academy , she sustained a back injury which has so far kept her from returning, and also burned her feet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't she need to provide evidence of her injury to be excused from attending her normal USAF Academy curriculum? Unless that's a lie too and the journalists are simply taking her at her word. Is that what people are suggesting?

And a back injury is consistent with lifting a heavy weight needless to say.

I'm not saying I positively believe the claims, but can't we just for once be happy about and take inspiration from someone managing to not let someone they love die? As opposed to most of the tragic news we see every day where these stories don't end so pleasantly? At least until and unless there's some actual evidence of deception?

It's not as if the original claim, at face value, is particularly unbelievable when you take away the 'superhuman strength' headline. Nor is it an unprecedented claim.

I'm just saying. Apologies if I offend.

Peace.

a reply to: BASSPLYR

Good Post, understanding how the brain works with muscle control, is the key to this whole thing.
The very thing you described is why sometimes power lifters can lift significantly more weight one day and not be able to replicate the same thing the following day.
It is in fact not just their muscle mass but muscle mass being in agreement with their mental state.

This is what is meant when you hear athletes say, "I am in the Zone." The Zone that is being talked about is the mental place they need to be in to perform at peak efficiency.

The real likelihood is she simply as people have said, lifted the shocks enough for him to squeeze out, to a person under the car it would look like she's lifting a big distance but if you go out and pull up on the wheel arch you will see it moves quite a lot because of the shock absorber before it gets to the real car weight.

Also lifting the back end of a car isn't that difficult for a reasonably strong person, its mostly an empty shell at the back (unless the boot is full), what you rarely see is a person lifting the front of a car because of the big engine weight.

Either way she did a hard job with the added adrenaline surge, good for her....

And for the oldies here, if you watched the pilot of the Incredible Hulk back in the 70's they go in to this sudden extra strength and some of the stories used were based on true events (some, not all, most were fantasy for the story), no need to be bombarded with gamma radiation

How they do it I'm not sure but on a scientific basis I'd say 99.9% are simple coincidence, knocking down solid metal doors sounds fantasy but if the hinges are rubbish then its very easy, I'd imagine in almost the cases there's a simple answer..

a reply to: machineintelligence

this is not a unheard occurrence. it has been seen many times and been documented by many people. here are just some stories from the past ten years, and i can remember hearin about them when i was a child. so much so that i remember being 10 or 11 trying to lift my dads car in the drive way. never did make it off the ground but that is what got me into weight lifting and playing football.

here's a wiki with some some links, you may have to do a little extra searches to find the stories. also a article on what the theory on why it happens. ( forgive the source)
How can adrenaline help you lift a 3,500-pound car?

The most common anecdotal examples are of parents lifting vehicles to rescue their children, and when people are in life and death situations. Hysterical strength can result in torn muscles due to higher mechanical stress.

In 1982, in Lawrenceville, Georgia, Tony Cavallo was repairing a 1964 Chevrolet Impala automobile from underneath. The vehicle was propped up with jacks, but it fell. Cavallo's mother, Mrs. Angela Cavallo, lifted the car high enough and long enough for two neighbours to replace the jacks and pull Tony from beneath the car.[4]

In 2006, Ivujivik, Quebec resident Lydia Angiyou saved several children by fighting a polar bear until a local hunter shot it.[5]

In 2006, in Tucson, Arizona, Tom Boyle watched as a Chevrolet Camaro hit 18-year-old Kyle Holtrust. The car pinned Holtrust, still alive, underneath. Boyle lifted the Camaro off the teenager, while the driver of the car pulled the teen to safety.[4][6]

In 2009, in Ottawa, Kansas, 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m), 185 lb (84 kg; 13.2 st) Nick Harris lifted a Mercury sedan to help a 6-year-old girl pinned beneath.[7]

In 2011, in Tampa, Florida, 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m), 295 lb (134 kg; 21.1 st) University of South Florida college football player Danous Estenor lifted a 3,500 lb (1,600 kg) car off of a man who had been caught underneath. The man was a tow truck driver who had been pinned under the rear tire of a 1990 Cadillac Seville, which had lurched forward as he worked underneath it. The man suffered only minor injuries.[8]

In 2012, in Glen Allen, Virginia, 22-year-old Lauren Kornacki rescued her father, Alec Kornacki, after the jack used to prop up his BMW slipped, pinning him under it. Lauren lifted the car, then performed CPR on her father and saved his life.[9]

In 2013, in Oregon, teenage sisters Hanna (age 16) & Haylee (age 14) lifted a tractor to save their father pinned underneath.[10]

In 2015, in St. John's, Newfoundland, Nick Williams lifted a four-wheel-drive vehicle to save a young boy pinned beneath its tire.[11]
Examples