Have you ever laughed when a friend or loved one fell down, just to find out they were seriously hurt?

When I was in high school a friend of mine and I went on a long bike ride on a dirt path through fields and up a steep hill and then across town. We returned on the same route home. My friend took the lead as we raced each other back home. I watch my friend fly full speed down the hill that we rode up earlier and crash onto a ditch that construction workers had just dug across out dirt bike path. I can still hear his scream and the squealing beaks as he careened head first into the huge deep ditch. I knew that he was beat-up pretty badly with broken skin possible broken bones but I could not stop laughing even though I knew that a crash like that could have killed him. If he was crippled from the accident I suppose that I would have felt very bad about laughing. However the accident happened about 44 years ago and I still laugh whenever I think about it.

@gondwanalon

So I’m guessing he’s ok? Bad for a story, great for reality. I remember my best friend at the time flying over the handle bars of his bicycle. He was hurt pretty badly, but not injured, but every time I conjure that memory in my head I laugh until I have to pee.

Nope, I’m usually not an asshole like that.

@bookish1 – Sometimes laughter is almost reflexive in a situation where one is caught off guard and something awkward and unpredictable and visually bizarre takes place.

I am a person who laughs when under nervous stress, I can’t explain why… it just happens. Once adrenaline takes over, there isn’t much room for reason. Does that make me an asshole?

It depends on how the fall happens. Most falls aren’t funny at all to me and they’re more likely to make me cringe and go, “OOoooooo!” in sympathy. (and maybe I’ll run over and help the person up if they need it, etc.)

However, humor approximately always involves the element of surprise and often vice-versa.
So if someone does a particularly agile watusi on the way down, or launches an armload of books into the air, or takes out an entire stacked-can display at the supermarket, or miraculously tosses the baby into the arms of a passing stranger a moment before impact, that could get me to laugh even if the crash is painful.
On that score I’m with @hearkat I think it can be reflexive.

Only when skiing and they did something completely stupid.