TedStixon

8th Jan 2023

The Punisher (2004)

Question: Would Castle's life have really been saved by jumping into the bathtub before the grenade went off?

Answer: In Season 9, Episode 20 of "Mythbusters," Adam and Jamie tested whether a person could survive a "toilet bomb" (recreating a Lethal Weapon 2 scene) by jumping into a cast iron bathtub and being covered with a bomb blanket. They used 1 kg of C-4 explosives that created a blast with a peak lethal pressure of 180 psi outside the tub. The pressure inside the tub was recorded as a survivable 8 psi, though with probable hearing damage. From what I read, a grenade has a much lesser psi force than what the C-4 explosion produced. Depending on the circumstances, it seems plausible that a person could survive the force and shrapnel while inside the tub.

raywest

Answer: It's plausible but highly unlikely. Assuming it's an old metal bathtub (which seems to be the case), it's possible it might have deflected enough of the percussive shock and shrapnel to save him, but unlikely that it'd stop everything. It's one of those things where it probably wouldn't work 90% of the time... but there's that 1 out of 10 chance it could possibly work if he got really lucky and no big pieces of shrapnel came his way. (Plus, stranger things have happened in real life).

TedStixon

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.