Cat Jumps From A Burning Building And Shocks Everyone With Her Skills
Recently, during a fire in a Chicago apartment building, firefighters and bystanders had the chance to witness a fantastic exhibition of feline agility and skill. The cat named Hennessy failed to evacuate with his owner and had to find a way out on his own.
“When the firefighters reached the floor and forced their way into the apartment, the cat was sitting on the other side of the door but would not come out,” Larry Langford from the Chicago Fire Department told reporters. “As they entered the apartment, the cat went deeper inside and eventually decided, after they knocked the windows out to ventilate, to get on the window ledge.”
Langford was taking a video of the incident when he saw Hennessy stepping out of the fifth-story window. He seemed nervous, and it looked like he was about to step in.
Felines are skilled climbers and very daring when it comes to heights. They can survive falls from great heights because they can align their bodies to ensure they always land on their feet. However, surprisingly, they can get injured if they fall from a low height because they don’t have enough time to align their bodies.
“They have a relatively large surface area in proportion to their weight, thus reducing the force at which they hit the pavement,” the BBC reports. “Cats reach terminal velocity, the speed at which the downward pull of gravity is matched by the upward push of wind resistance, at a slower speed compared to larger animals like humans and horses.”
Hennessy first estimated the height before he jumped from the window. “He put his paws out like he was testing — it actually looked like he was trying to calculate [the fall], and then he just took off,” Langford said. “It was surprising.”
While in the air, the skillful cat spread out his legs, creating a sort of parachute effect. To Langford, “he looked more like a flying squirrel than a cat.”
As people gasped, Hennessy flew past a retaining wall and landed securely on the lawn with a small bounce. He then walked off calmly, as if it were no big deal.
Everyone was surprised that he wasn’t limping and that he seemed perfectly fine. It just proves that, no matter what happens, the cat always lands on its feet.
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