Terrifying reality of what would happen if you fell into hot lava

Remember near the end of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King when Gollum falls into the lava and dies?

Of course you do, it's a great movie and every detail ought to be etched into your mind.

Anyhow, he kind of plops onto the surface of the lava for a couple of seconds before sinking in and that's the end of him.

But what would happen to you or I if we took a little tumble into some lava?

Don't even think about it. Seriously. (Getty Stock Photo)

The short version is that we would die and it would not be pleasant.

The long version is that the rising heat from the lava would make your skin blister even before you made contact with it, clothing and hair would likely ignite before you even hit the surface.

As for what would then happen to your body when it made impact with lava, volcanologist Adam Kent once told Digg that you would float.

Gollum might have plopped in there and sunk down, but lava is dense enough that sinking down would be difficult.

Once you were bobbing up and down on the world's most painful river, Kent said that as your body was destroyed it would then explode.

"The basic idea is that the gases in a body would expand rapidly and probably cause a series of minor explosions," he explained as the gas contained within all of our bodies would expand due to the heat and go boom.

Whatever else remains of you is going to be subjected to such high temperatures that before long there's not going to be much of anything left of you.

You wouldn't actually sink, you'd just kind of bob on the surface and explode. Also you'd die. (Getty Stock Photo)

Kent expects that you wouldn't even be in much of a condition to cry out or move around as the heat is so intense that the water in your body would boil to steam.

He said: "I think that you would be pretty rapidly overcome by heat, both conductive and radiant.

"If you are ever near an active lava flow the radiant heat is crippling at quite some distance from the lava — let alone lying right on top."

So that's what would happen to you if you were to fall into some lava, you would die a horribly painful death.

The only possible benefit is that it surely wouldn't take too long to go, though however long it took would be pretty much the worst time of your life.

Remember that one guy who cooked some bacon and eggs on a volcano? It'd be you that was cooked.

Topics: Science, Weird, Environment, Health

Joe Harker

Joe graduated from the University of Salford with a degree in Journalism and worked for Reach before joining the LADbible Group. When not writing he enjoys the nerdier things in life like painting wargaming miniatures and chatting with other nerds on the internet. He's also spent a few years coaching fencing. Contact him via [email protected]

@MrJoeHarker