Cat people-- likelihood of a cat jumping from a 2nd floor window and not being injured?

[A-Polly]

I really, really don't want to hear of anyone experimenting with this...

[Black]

View from the side window on the level the cat jumped from:

Mostly concrete and a wrought-iron fence raised sidewalk about 5 feet from the building in the front where it jumped...

[ka jowct]

Black wrote:
[quote=ka jowct]
Years ago, one of mine fell from a second floor window into the concrete area outside the building's basement entrance. (Thanks so much, Other Human who opened the window without inserting the screen, never saw the cat go out, shut the window, and went on his merry way, leaving me to search frantically when I got home hours later, with no reason to think she was outside. Grrrrrrr.) Luckily I found her before she had spent a night under the basement steps in shock, in 40-degree rainy weather, which probably would have killed her. She had a split palate, partially collapsed lungs, and a back injury that turned out to be a good thing because it kept her from getting very far. After a trip to the AMC ($$) and a month of cage rest so that her back could heal, she recovered from it.

So 2-floor falls onto concrete: not good.

Odd. Was the cat elderly or overweight?
She was 6 months old, and definitely not overweight. The vets who looked at her (which was before I knew exactly how she had wound up outside under the basement steps) said that her injuries were very common injuries in cats who have fallen with the muzzle and the chest smacking into the ground (in this case presumably concrete), hence the collapsed lung and split palate.