A 16-year-old cat fell 20 stories while his owner was away on vacation on the Fourth of July and survived with barely a scratch. Web developer Barry Myers tells us he cracked a window several inches in his Upper West Side apartment before leaving town for Cape Cod with his wife and five-year-old child. On July 4th he got a call from his neighbor who had come by to feed the cat, named Gloucester. "She didn't see him anywhere in his usual nooks and crannies, and after searching the entire apartment she noticed the crack in the window." Down in the courtyard, a security guard and another tenant had already discovered poor Gloucester.
Although a local newspaper, The NY Post, reported that Gloucester was unconscious when he was found, Myers insists his cat was conscious, adding, "I never told the reporter he was unconscious and they asked me a lot of questions, but I don't know where they got that." Gloucester was rushed to the vet and was in ICU for several days. But neurological exams showed no signs of damage, he did not break any bones, and didn't even suffer any internal bleeding!
Gloucester, whom Myers is now calling "Super G," came home Monday night, and the vet bill came to over $2,000. "He's still a little wobbly because he took a hit on the noggin," says Myers, but the vet expects him to be okay. "We feel very lucky and grateful. The vet told us that when a cat falls from ten floors or fewer, they have less of a chance for survival because they don't have enough time to right their body before impact. We were told there was a cat who fell 32 floors and survived!" Two years ago, a cat survived a 26-story fall from a Lower Manhattan residence and, more recently, another Upper West Side cat survived a 12-story fall after getting through a three-inch window gap.
Myers speculates that Super G—whom he rescued along with two brothers from the basement of his old apartment in Boston 16 years ago—was going after a bird when he crawled out on the ledge. If you have cats, pet experts say you should not not leave unscreened windows open more than a inch. And the ASPCA has more on "high rise syndrome."
