--- title: Lucky Cat Survives 12-Story Fall description: With minor injuries. canonical: https://time.com/3131785/feline-lucky-cat-survives-12-story-fall/ author: Bijan Stephen article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-17T19:57:21.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:12:31.313Z og:title: Lucky Cat Survives 12-Story Fall og:description: With minor injuries. og:url: https://time.com/3131785/feline-lucky-cat-survives-12-story-fall/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Lucky Cat Survives 12-Story Fall twitter:description: With minor injuries. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Feline Lucky? 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The Brief is available free at time.com/newsletters, where readers can select it along with any of TIME's other six newsletters. There is no subscription required to receive it. #### Is The Brief free? Yes. The Brief is a free daily email newsletter from TIME. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes The Brief? The Brief is led by editor Richard Hall and draws on reporting from TIME's newsroom. Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. by [Bijan Stephen](https://time.com/author/bijan-stephen/) ## Bijan Stephen Aug 17, 2014 7:57 PM UTC by [Bijan Stephen](https://time.com/author/bijan-stephen/) ## Bijan Stephen Aug 17, 2014 7:57 PM UTC A cat named Gizmo recently fell 12 stories from the penthouse terrace of a Manhattan apartment building, landing on a third floor landing and getting wedged between a skylight and a wall. Gizmo’s owner, Samuel Jacobs, didn’t see what happened, but speculated that his cat slipped through the door to the terrace and then off the edge, the Associated Press [reports](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US%5FCAT%5FSURVIVES%5FFALL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT). After climbing out of a neighbor’s window, Jacobs rushed Gizmo to a vet, fearing internal injuries. When they got there, however, Gizmo was given a relatively clean bill of health—some scratches and a single broken tooth. So how did Gizmo survive the fall? It turns out our feline friends are actually well-equipped to land unscathed after falling from high places. When cats are 3-4 weeks old, they begin to develop what’s called the ‘[righting reflex](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%5Frighting%5Freflex)‘, which is how cats twist in midair to land on their feet. It’s perfected at around 7 weeks old. (Here’s [a cool schematic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cat%5Ffall%5F150x300%5F6fps.gif#mediaviewer/File:Cat%5Ffall%5F150x300%5F6fps.gif) that shows how they actually manage to do it.) A study conducted in 1987 and published in the _Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association_ examined 132 cats that had fallen from buildings and were brought into vets around New York Animal Medical center for treatment. It found that injuries per cat increased depending on the height the cat fell up to 7 stories, but actually _decreased_ when the cat fell from above that threshold. The researchers speculated that this was due to the cats’ ability to right themselves and their relatively low terminal velocity. \[[_AP_](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US%5FCAT%5FSURVIVES%5FFALL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3131785/feline-lucky-cat-survives-12-story-fall/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3131785/feline-lucky-cat-survives-12-story-fall/"},"headline":"Feline Lucky? 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