Not pratfalls, but cat falls.

[vakkotaur]

sistaur returned from the Animal Rehabilitation Institute in Wellington Florida where she had a couple courses about canines. As small animal veterinary work, and veterinary work in general, covers more than one species there was at least some talk about animals that were not dogs. One of the instructors there related a curiosity about the domestic feline. Before I go on, I must make it clear that while this is about cats and falls, this is not about cats landing on their feet. That can happen in a fairly short drop. This is also not about buttered bread. This is about long and altogether very unhealthy falls.

Veterinarians have noticed that, as you would expect, the greater the distance a cat falls the more severe are its injuries. I don't know when cats start to sustain injuries from falls, but clearly a fall from a first floor window is not as bad as a fall from a second floor window, and so on. And that is generally true. But if you plotted a graph of height of fall and severity of injury it would not be a straight line or even a smooth curve. There'd be a dip in the graph around the eighth floor.

Curiously, feline injuries from falls from the 7th or 8th story (depending on building, terrain, and who knows what else) are not as severe as the injuries from falls from (the higher of the) lower floors. This is something of a puzzle: Why is the case?

I suppose folks are now wondering: Never mind that, why are cats falling out of tall buildings? People leave windows open insufficiently screened and cats... well, "maybe it was chasing the bug." Or it had a "cat-fit" or "kitty psychotic episode" -- that zooming around in the feline equivalent of Brownian motion for no apparent reason -- and only almost bounced off that last wall? The vets likely don't get told what sent kitty down the gravity well, they just deal with the results of that deceleration at the end of the trip. They would like to not have to deal with High-Rise Syndrome - the set of injuries that are commonly sustained in falls from great heights.

Back to the kitty conundrum: Why are falls from about the 7th floor less injurious than falls from, say, the 5th? Nobody knows for sure, but at least one idea was suggested. That is that it takes just under 7 stories for a cat to reach terminal velocity. This page claims that cats reach terminal velocity after 5 stories of fall. This alone isn't enough, though, as if it was the injuries would never be any worse from falls starting higher. Perhaps it's that and feline psychology: the cat has enough time to relax somewhat and not enough time to really start panicking about the situation it is in.

While some cats do manage to survive generally unscathed after falls from astonishing heights, as covered in this Straight Dope article, the article points out that those are the "miracles" we hear about. Vets see the cases that are noticed and don't just walk away... or never move again. At least one source claims that the 7 story issue is worse injuries than falls from lower and higher floors. Another source makes the opposite claim.

Speculation? Elucidation? Information that reliably confirms or disputes the whole thing?

Comments

[mr-fu.livejournal.com]

Well clearly what's needed is a heavily-funded battery of tests. The Central Institute on Cat Plummeting had better start earning that grant.

Cat-Splat Hypothesis

[(Anonymous)]

Good grief, Vakkotaur. I didn't expect you to write a term paper on the subject! However, in the interest of science, I appreciate the endeavor. Why DOES a cat sustain fewer injuries falling from the 7th-ish floor, if indeed that is the case? My first hypotheses:
1. The cat bounces.
2. The cat panics a prior to and a few seconds after reaching terminal velocity, leaving a few seconds' window during which it relaxes and can land safely.

I wonder, at what point in the fall would a cat be likely to lose consciousness and therefore be REALLY relaxed when it hits?

I'd assume the average cat would weigh about 10 lbs. If a physicist wants to assume that the object is spherical, up the cat to 20 lbs - those are generally the more spherical cats. That's WAY too much Fancy Feast.
-Sistaur

Re: Cat-Splat Hypothesis

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

You might try logging in next time...

And I wanted to get things as right as I could. With a spherical 20 lbs cat, wouldn't there be less likelihood of it being (able to be) sufficiently active to get to the window?

[melissasutton.livejournal.com]

I have heard it theorized that in a longer fall the cat has opportunity to right itself and prepare for the landing - so that if they can survive it they will.. in a short fall its too quick a time for them to orient and they land badly