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From: iayork@panix.com (Ian A. York)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Tang and Cats (the animals, not the musical)
Date: 21 Jan 1996 14:07:17 -0500

In article <DLHMDu.LJp@midway.uchicago.edu>, sharon fenick <sfenick@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote: >
>(B): An Old Hat Who Should Know Better recently told me a horrifically UL-ish
>story about how cats can survive falls when they are from lower than a
>certain height (say, 2 stories, for clarity's sake) or when they are from
>higher than a certain other height (say, 4 stories) but not from the

There was indeed a study done and those were the conclusions that it drew. The suggestion was that at low and intermediate heights the cat turns and lands on its feet. This technique works well at low heights, but at intermediate heights it results in lotsa bones and stuff being broken. When, however, the cat notices that it has a long way to go, it parachutes instead - flattening its body and landing on its chest and abdomen rather than legs. As a result, terminal velocity is lower, and the impact is distributed better so there is less damage. I can probably find the study, but I don't think it's in Medline (which has poor representation of veterinary journals) so it might well take a while to track it down.

When I was in practice, we used to see cats with HRS (high-rise syndrome, as we abbreviated it in our notes) quite often. The record I saw was about 23 floors, if I recall correctly; but I won't swear to the exact number. The most common injuries in these long falls were jaw fractures and pneumothorax, both what you'd expect to see in a parachuting cat, with occasional pelvic fractures as well. Broken legs were surprisingly rare. I believe we did see some in intermediate falls, but this is now small samples and quite a while ago, so again I won't swear to the accuracy of my memory.

It's worth noting that we (and the study in question) probably didn't see the complete failures that fell from 23 floors, as they were probably DOA and buried.

A letter was written to Ann Landers complaining about the horrid scientists who callously hurled cats out from highrises to test this, and Ann pointed out that it was simply retrospective tallies of cats that had already fallen; so based on the Landers Rule I hereby declare this is an official UL anyway.

Ian

--

                      Ian York   (iayork@panix.com)
      "-but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a
       very respectable Man." -Jane Austen, The History of England