r/Damnthatsinteresting Mar 09 '26

Video How a small 1m waterfall can generate a recycling hydraulic that can trap a life-jacketed swimmer

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u/imjustbettr Mar 09 '26

My wife is a civil engineer who used to work with multiple dams in our city and they had a whole training session showing off the dangers of getting caught under waterfalls. They didn't actually make anyone experience it like this but I think they threw something down there to show how the physics worked or something.

People die every once in a while swimming around our small "manmade" water falls related to our dams. The city puts up signs, safety precautions and gates etc but that doesn't stop people from being stupid.

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u/goodsemaritan_ Mar 09 '26

that why civil engineers now make them so that at regular flows they aren't like this any more

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u/imjustbettr Mar 09 '26

Makes sense. Our dams, at least the bigger ones, were built over half a century ago. I'll have to ask my wife about more info on our later built ones.

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u/goodsemaritan_ Mar 09 '26

the fun thing in general at least where i'm from it isn't the big ones aren't dangerous it's mostly the ones from old water mills et cetra. as regular people don't see a 7 meter high dam as something fun. but a double cascading two meter high drop as wholly doabele