on Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts...

The Official Citation

The Ig Nobel Medicine Prize was awarded to

Peter Barss of McGill University, for his impactful medical report, "Injuries Due To falling Coconuts."

 His studies were published in The Journal of Traumas, vol. 21, no. 11, 1984.

As a young Canadian doctor newly arrived in Papua, New Guinea, Peter Barss wondered what were the most common kinds of injuries that brought people to the Provincial Hospital tin Alotau, Milne bay Province. A surprising high percentage of these injuries, he discovered, were due to falling coconuts.

A relatively small number of people are actually killed by falling coconuts. One was the case of:

            “ A man who had come down to visit the coast from his house in the mountains of the island, where there are few palm trees. He was perhaps unaware of the dangers of falling coconuts. He was standing beneath a tree as another man kicked down a coconut. It struck him squarely on the top of his skull; he dropped, and died within a few minutes.”

           Coconut palms, Dr. Barss points out, grow to a great height. This is particularly true of the Cocos nucifera, variety typical, the most common type in the Milne Bay Province.

            “The trees grow continuously in height for 80 to 100 years, commonly reach 24 to 30 meters, and can be as high as 35 meters. The coconuts are attached high up in bunches at the top of the trunk… They are sometimes harvested green for drinking, which is done by climbing the tree and cutting, kicking , or pulling loose the coconuts. [Dry coconuts] sometimes fall during heavy wind or during prolonged rainfall when the weight of the husks may increase. Houses are often built close to coconut palms. It is not surprising that adults or children are occasionally struck by falling nuts.:”

            Dr. Barss’s report includes the first thoroughgoing technical analysis of the unfettered descent of a coconut (see below) Important and interesting though the physics may be, the report’s greatest import, like that of a falling coconut, is on the health or ordinary people. Dr. Barss’s hard-hitting conclusion says:

            “The physical forces involved in a direct blow to the skull by a falling coconut are potentially very large. Glancing blows will, of course, be less serious. It seems unwise to locate dwellings near coconut palms, and children should not be allowed to play under coconut trees with mature nuts.”

 

            Dr. Barss has, in his career, treated many kinds of injuries, some peculiar to the parts of the world in which he was living at the time. Visitors to what are, for them, far-off climes would do well t consult the medical literature for a quick heads up on what to watch out for when they arrive. Dr. Barss has published more than 40 medical reports, including several about illness and injuries characteristic of the South Pacific. These include: ”Injuries Caused by Pigs in Papua New Guinea” (Medical Journal of Australia, vol. 149, December 5-19, 1988, pp.649 – 56); “Grass-skirt Burns in Papua New Guinea” (The Lancet, 1983); “Penetrating Wounds Caused by Needle-Fish in Oceania” (Medical Journal of Australia, 1985); and “Inhalation Hazards of Tropical ‘Pea Shooters’” (Papua and New Guinea Medical Journal, 1985).

 

            All of thee are real and present dangers. But it is for looking into the matter of injuries due to falling coconuts – and for doing something about them – that Peter Barss won the 2001 Ig Nobel Prize in the field of Medicine.

 

            Dr .Barss travelled, at his own expense, from Montreal to the Ig Noble Prize Ceremony. In accepting the Prize, he showed slides and said:

 

            “I did this work in Papua New Guinea. I bought a few pictures of the wonderful people I worked with that helped me to do my research. These are the types of trees people fall from… and this is a man with a spinal cord injury falling from a tree being taken away.. .Most of these people die, unfortunately. This is a simple device for removing breadfruit from a tree, to prevent injuries… This one is just a simple prevention measure of pruning mango trees so you don’t have to climb so high and fall so heard. Some of the heights of tropical trees are about the same as 10-story building, so that the mass of a falling coconut is about a metric ton with a direct hit. So, the worst place to be when a coconut falls, is asleep under the tree. Because you head is on the ground and you have a zero, uh, stopping distance so the physicists know the kinetic energy is infinite. It’s better to be standing up and get knocked down…” (At this point, Miss Sweetie Poo terminated Dr, Barss. Speech.)

 

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The Ig Nobel Prizes

 

Technical Analysis of a Falling Coconut

 

Here is Peter Barss’s description of the Newtonian mechanics of a free-falling coconut:

 

“An average unhusked, mature dry coconut may weigh from 1 to more than 2 kilograms (2.2 – 4.4 pounds). A nut whose husk is soaked with water, or a green coconut, can weigh as much as 4 kilograms (8.8pounds). When such a mass is accelerated by gravity, after falling down from a height approximately equal to a 10-story building, and then comes to rest by being suddenly decelerated onto someone’s head, it is not surprising that severe head injuries sometimes occur. If a coconut weighing 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) falls 25 meters onto a person’s head, the impact velocity is 80 kilometers (50 miles)/ hour. The decelerating force on the head will vary depending on whether a direct or glancing blow is received. The distance in which the coconut is decelerated is also an important factor. Thus an infant’s head lying on the ground would receive a much greater force than that received by the head of a standing adult, that dropped as it was struck. For a stopping distance of 5 centimeters (2 inches) and a direct blow, the force would be 1,000 kilograms (2,205 pounds).”