Man Survives 39-Story Fall, With Help from Dodge

  • Share
  • Read Later
Paul Hawthorne / REUTERS

It’s been said before: just because you fall 39 stories from a tall building doesn’t necessarily means it’s the end, or something like that.

Thomas Magill, 22, a New Yorker who jumped from a Manhattan high-rise learned that lesson Monday as he plummeted through the sky and finally into the backseat of a Dodge Charger after crashing through its windshield, The New York Post reported. Police don’t know why he jumped, but he suffered a broken leg, a shattered ankle and a collapsed lung and is listed in critical condition. He was also conscious when EMS workers showed up. Ouch.

Guy McCormack, 40, who borrowed his wife’s car to drive to work at a nearby construction site told the Associated Press that the rosary beads inside the Dodge saved the young aspiring actor’s life.

Despite Magill ruining McCormack’s hot ride and seemingly perfect parking space, there are actual high rise falls that can be survived, depending on the physics of the circumstance. In 2007, Alcides Moreno, a New York window washer survived a 47-story fall that killed his brother. But elements like air currents and the platform he clung to determined his survival. Rosary beads were likely not a factor.

Update: Due to an AP error, NewsFeed reported Magill’s fall as 40 stories, when he in fact fell 39 stories.