Amazing Chicago Cat Jumps From 5 Stories Up, Sticks Landing

Yesterday, while working to put out a building fire in Chicago, firefighters happened to be rolling some video of the outside of burning structure when something pretty incredible took place.

A cat that had obviously been in the building before the fire started, did what pretty much any of us would do in the same circumstance---try to get the hell out of there. The problem for the cat (and for any human that found themselves in the same predicament) was that the only way out was a window five stories above the ground.

NBC-5 Chicago:

A black cat appeared through billowing smoke at a broken window, briefly tested the side of the building with its front paws, and then jumped.

Onlookers gasped as the cat fell. But it missed a wall as it hurtled downward and instead landed on all four paws atop grass, where it bounced once and immediately ran away.

Here's the video:

One onlooker said the freaked-out feline hid under a car until it decided it was safe to come out, and Chicago firefighters later reported that the cat was uninjured in the fall.

That's a great story with a happy ending, and it made me wonder how many other cat-leaps-from-a-super-high-place stories there are floating around out there. Not surprisingly, there are more than a few. And, it turns out that the 5 story leap isn't even close to the highest survived jump by a cat.

The BBC reports that in 1987, a cat fell 32 stories from a New York City high-rise building onto the concrete sidewalk below. The cat was rushed to a veterinarian, who treated it for a collapsed lung and a chipped tooth. Two days later, the cat was back on his 32nd story perch, looking out a closed window.

Several years back, the Boston Globe ran a story about a cat that fell 19 stories from its apartment window, with the only injury being a bruised chest.

There is a distinct difference between falling and jumping, though. This jump, from the 21st floor of an apartment building, wasn't done by a cat. This is a squirrel, and he or she definitely intended to jump. Watch until the end to see how well the squirrel handled the aftermath: