How to Fall 47 Stories... and Live

How did Alcides Moreno, a New York City window washer, manage to fall 47 stories -- and live? His brother, Edgar, was up on the same shaky scaffold, and didn't make it. And fifty percent of people who fall a mere "four to five stories die. By the time you reach 10 or 11 stories, just about everyone dies," Dr. Sheldon
Teperman tells the* New York Post*.

So he did Moreno survive? The Post has a theory: he was able to cling "to a 1,250-pound scaffold that acted like a surfboard in the sky."

• Those grappling with why he miraculously survived his plunge from the roof of a 47-story high-rise say the aluminum platform added air resistance that slowed his descent - and blunted the tremendous force of hitting the concrete pavement in an alley below. *

Maybe, experts said, a random air current rising between the Upper East
Side buildings where Moreno plummeted slowed him the extra bit that spared his life...*

*In a free fall, both men would quickly have hit a maximum speed of
124 mph, or terminal velocity - the point when gravity pulling a person down is balanced by upward air friction, said James Kakaklios, a physics professor at the University of Minnesota. *

• But the scaffold's platform likely slowed Alcides' descent "significantly" by pushing the air, he said. *

• His landing position also could have made a huge difference. *

"If he was lying flat, not only would the scaffold act as a shock absorber, but the force to stop him would be spread more evenly over his body. If he came down on one point, the sudden shock could easily break the back or neck," Kakaklios said.*

Over the weekend, Moreno opened his eyes and started moving his arms and legs, his cousin said.