Fun_People Archive
30 Mar
Heart Stopper O' The Day

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From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Thu, 30 Mar 100 12:16:33 -0800
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Subject: Heart Stopper O' The Day

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From: Burlington Free Press, 25 March 2000, p. A2, compiled from wire reports

              California Man Survives Five-Story Plunge

WALNUT CREEK, CA -- Chris Hoyle heard the scream and looked up from her
desk to see a man falling past her window -- head first.  "His head was
down, his feet were up, and he came whizzing by screaming," she told the
Contra Costa Times.

She ran outside and shouted to a man near the five-story building, "Is
everyone all right?  I just saw a man fall off the roof.."

"Yeah, that would be me," Ken Larsen, 34, told her.  His arm was scratched
and his shoulder bruised, but nothing was broken.  In fact, he said, he
landed on his feet.

Larsen had been laying telecommunications cable on the roof, walking
backward and pulling it.  His co-worker holding the spool yelled, "Hold it
a minute," but Larsen was already stepping back -- and off the edge.

Halfway to the ground, Larsen realized he might survive.  The cable he
still clutched was slowing his fall.

On the roof, Rick Williver, 46, had thrown his weight against the spinning
spool.  When the cable stopped unwinding, he peered over the edge.  Five
stories below, Larsen was walking around.  After unwinding 65 feet of cable
and crashing through tree branches, he had landed on his feet.  "It was
like landing after a parachute jump," Larsen said.

© 2000 Peter Langston