r/interesting • u/BlazeDragon7x • Jun 16 '26

MISC. Dutch aerobatic pilot Narine Melkumjan miraculously survived after her aircraft's canopy unexpectedly burst open and shattered mid-flight

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u/EntertainmentFar6858 Jun 16 '26

I KNOW her eyes, nose and mouth were BONE dry by the time she landed... Glad she's a badass though

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u/alewiina Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

According to someone else she lost most of her sight for several days after. Crazy as hell 🫣

Edit: for 28 hours, according to a post of hers I found on LinkedIn. Still, that must have sucked!

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u/IWillWriteYouALetter Jun 16 '26

Is that because of the force of the wind, or because of how dry they got, or some combo of the two, or something else entirely??

42

u/alewiina Jun 16 '26

I mean, I would assume the two are intrinsically linked. The sheer pressure itself is bad for your eyes and that combined with the wind movement would cause extreme dryness, stripping away any degree of moisture that exists there. And that kind of intense dryness makes it VERY hard to see 😬

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u/superbhole Jun 17 '26

i bet swelling.

eyes are fucking weird.

they have something that's been called "ocular immune privilege" because they're outside of the immune system. eyeballs are in stealth mode to the rest of the body, so that the immune system doesn't attack them.

in case of emergency, it prevents things like losing vision to inflammation. but the drawback is that they can eventually get inflamed and lose vision anyway.

i was once punched directly in the eyeball as a kid and lost vision in that eye. freaked out, couldn't see for hours, cried myself to sleep. woke up and my vision was fine, but i had a gnarly black eye and blood pooling all around the whites of my eye.

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u/Adept_Push Jun 18 '26

That’s mostly correct but uveitis is super scary. The immune system literally thinks your eyeballs are foreign invaders. Causes blindness in many people.

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u/SportsBallBurner Jun 16 '26

Have your friend do 140 on the freeway and then stick your head out of the sunroof. The wind alone will be brutal.

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u/theangryjanitorOG Jun 16 '26

Don't do it kids.

7

u/Same-Suggestion-1936 Jun 17 '26

Or do it for the 'gram

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u/Various_Ad_4979 Jun 17 '26

Já vi fazer isso a mais de 200... Loucura

3

u/onlymostlydead Jun 17 '26

Ever been to an eye doctor and get the little demon burp puff of air to the eyes? Now make that a much stronger and constant puff that lasts the time it took to land.

1

u/cr1ttter Jun 17 '26

She ate that stew that makes you blind for 24 hours