# Kitten fell ten feet?



## ellie.p (Mar 5, 2010)

Due to unforeseen circumstances, we've had to bring our 9 (nearly 10) week old kitten on holiday with us. We're still in England, about 2 hours drive from home. Don't want to go into the ins and outs of it now, but it was the best possible decision for him and for us.

He settled in wonderfully to the house, he is confined to one room at night and if we are out, and occasionally throughout the day if he is asleep or we are taking a nap.

The house has a large landing/balcony with bars he can easily slip through, and yesterday he was seen walking along the outside of the bars. There was nothing we could do without making it more dangerous to him.

Today he fell off. The landing is about ten feet off the floor.

We're almost positive he landed on his feet. He sat in the same place he fell for a few seconds, not quite sure what was happening, and then we picked him up carefully and took him to sit down. He seemed shocked and quiet, but not in any real distress, and had no obvious signs of injury. There is no bleeding, no limping, no unsteadiness at all.

We looked up the signs of shock and he has NONE of them. No heavy breathing, no rapid heart rate, he is COMPLETELY NORMAL. Looked up the signs for internal injury, again, completely normal.

He took a few seconds to find his surroundings but is now fine. Within minutes of his fall he was jumping on the chair, jumping off the chair, running upstairs on his own, and he has just finished his wet food from earlier this morning. Right now he's trying to climb onto the computer keyboard (which he loves).

He is purring as usual (happy, relaxed purring when we stroke him) and makes no sounds when we pick him up (assuming that an injury would hurt him if picked up). He seems perfectly normal.

I know cats are brilliant at landing on their feet and being absolutely fine, but obviously being so small I am a little concerned, although less so now that I've seen how he seems absolutely no different to normal.

We have the number and address of the local vet, and of the out of hours service, so obviously can go if necessary, but I don't want to stress him out if he doesn't need it.

So given the fact that he seems absolutely fine, no different from normal, do you think it is imperative that we take him to the vets RIGHT NOW, or do you think that we could wait a couple of hours and see how he progresses before doing that?

We are in far more distress than he seems to be! We left him alone upstairs for less than 30 seconds, and he did this! Obviously we'll have to be very, VERY careful for the next few days!


----------



## buffie (May 31, 2010)

Sounds as if he has had a lucky escape but if it was my kitten I would want to have him checked over .


----------



## jamjar919 (Jul 4, 2010)

Cats can fall on there feet from a very, very high height. And the higher the fall, the more chance if surviving as the cat has more time to brace itself. She's probably ok but if something looks wring then take her to the vet.


----------



## dharma66 (Oct 25, 2009)

I assume she's eating ok? The reason I ask is that the most common injury from falls is a broken lower jaw.

The 'righting' reflex is active from quite a young age. As the cat falls, it first twists it's upper body to be level with the flow, followed by the lower body. It does, however, take almost a full second for this sequence of events, if the cat is actually upside-down when it falls. This translates to a fall of up to 20 feet before the cat is ready for the landing. If she slipped off the ledge and was the right way up, she probably fell feet first anyway.

When the 'righted' cat hits the ground, the front feet land first, followed by the back. The front leg, back and chest muscles take the majority of the strain.

The reason for injury to the jaw is that cats do not have particularly robust neck muscles, and the head is quite heavy. When the feet hit the ground, the head will be pulled back as far as possible, but from a fall of any height, there is a good chance the neck will not support the head, and the chin will strike the ground. From about 10 feet, most cats would be able to support the head, but a small kitten may not, so make sure she is eating ok, and see how she feels about you inspect her mouth, gently. If she seems tender around her jaw, it's worth a visit to the vet.

As jamjar919 said, an interesting fact is that cats that fall from first floor windows often suffer worse injuries than tho that fall further. This is because of the time it takes for the righting reflex to have full effect. Cats falling from a first floor window often land with a spine that is still twisted, and suffer injuries to the spine or back legs.

The safest distance for a cat to fall is from three to seven floors. On falls of more than three or four floors, the cat will be fully righted and braced for landing, and some have been seen (and videoed) spinning their tales round like a helicopter! The last I heard, the scientific community were still undecided as to whether this helped at all!


----------



## ellie.p (Mar 5, 2010)

dharma66 said:


> I assume she's eating ok? The reason I ask is that the most common injury from falls is a broken lower jaw.
> 
> The 'righting' reflex is active from quite a young age. As the cat falls, it first twists it's upper body to be level with the flow, followed by the lower body. It does, however, take almost a full second for this sequence of events, if the cat is actually upside-down when it falls. This translates to a fall of up to 20 feet before the cat is ready for the landing. If she slipped off the ledge and was the right way up, she probably fell feet first anyway.
> 
> ...


Wow, that's fascinating.  I knew about cats almost always landing on their feet, but had no idea how it was done!

Max is eating absolutely fine. It's been over 24 hours since the fall and there has been no change to his eating, drinking, toileting or playing habits. I did check his mouth yesterday, he let me open it gently for a couple of seconds and didn't fuss at all.

We're fairly sure he was just crawling along the outside of the bars on the landing and either lost his balance (it's JUST wide enough to walk on) or saw a fly and jumped (which he's prone to doing). Either way, it looked like he landed on his feet. If he hadn't I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have been okay!

Seems like he was just lucky - landed on his feet, not a huge height, no signs of injury anywhere - but we're being careful now, watching him every moment he's not in his safe room.

I think I was mostly trying to convince myself I was doing the right thing when I wrote that post. If you had all yelled, "TAKE HIM TO THE VET IMMEDIATELY YOU STUPID GIRL!" I would have, I just needed to know I was doing the right thing.

Thankfully it looks like he's fine (I have read that the first few hours are the most crucial, and he's come through over a day!), though I'm pretty sure if he did it again I wouldn't hesitate to take him. Shock just makes you lose your head a little.

Thanks!!


----------



## love cats (Jul 1, 2010)

my cat likes to land on his head just to be funny, he no longer goes out... 

hope the kitten is ok


----------



## merothe (Jun 4, 2010)

I saw on QI that apparently a cat falling from a great height (5 floors or higher) will spread out its legs and so has a kind of parachute effect! They also said 1st to 5th floor injuries go up, but higher than that and injuries actually go down because of this (i wouldnt want to test it though )


----------

