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I wonder what surviving human held the record before balloons (excluding edge cases like jumping gaps on a mountain bridge). Probably it was someone falling from a cliff into snow or water, but maybe it involved something weird like a gunpowder explosion or volcano.
Explainxkcd: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3039:_Human_Altitude
If you look at the description of the data ie. That falls are considered to be gaining altitude not losing altitude, they seem to be referring to distance from solid object connected to ground not distance from ground or sea level. So mountains and buildings don’t count unless you jump off of it.