How close do you have to come to a black hole before being sucked into it, and how big is the force pulling you in?

Question: How close do you have to come to a black hole before being sucked into it, and how big is the force pulling you in?
- Keywords:
  black hole
Asked by 09masseyo to Alessandro, Angela, Claudia, Marina, Phil on 11 Mar 2013.
- Phillip Wilkinson answered on 11 Mar 2013:
  
  Great question!
  
  The point at which you cannot escape, at which light cannot even escape, the gravitational pull of a black hole is called the ‘event horizon’.
  
  How close this is and the strength of the force pulling you in is dependent on the ‘singularity’ at the center. A singularity is a point in space in which an incredible amount of mass is squashed into an incredible small point. Blackholes are formed when huge stars collapse in on themselves. So it depends on how big the original star is!
  
  Sorry I can’t give you any definite answers, but this is an area the smartest researchers in the world are still exploring and unsure of!

Question: How close do you have to come to a black hole before being sucked into it, and how big is the force pulling you in?