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Apr 02, 2023

Owners Horrified Watching Cat's Dramatic Fall After Climbing Ladder

A daredevil cat loves keeping his owners guessing about his next move—and they

A daredevil cat loves keeping his owners guessing about his next move—and they certainly weren't expecting to see him climb a ladder to check out the housework they'd been doing upstairs.

When Stacey Brown, from Kansas City, Missouri, was taking a break from her tasks around the house, she took a peak outside to see her cat, Ezra, ascending the rungs of a ladder that had been left in the yard.

Brown started filming and instructed her husband to quietly go over and try to grab Ezra before he fell off, but he wasn't able to get there in time. Despite his dramatic fall, Brown told Newsweek that: "Ezra is perfectly fine, and continues to cause a little bit of mischief wherever he goes."

Following the encounter, Brown joked that she didn't think he "would make it so far up the ladder" to begin with, but he certainly proved them wrong.

Cats may be known for their agility and natural reflexes, but that doesn't mean they can't get injured in a fall. In fact, a popular notion called high rise syndrome has been known for many years to describe the injuries that cats sustain after falling from high places.

Cases of high rise syndrome are seen more regularly during the warmer months because cats will go to great heights to find a nice spot in the sun where they can sit and watch the world go by.

In the 1980s, the Animal Medical Center treated 132 cats that had fallen from buildings within the space of five months. Thankfully, 90 percent of them survived, but it raised concerns about the number of injuries being reported that summer.

Cats might do anything for a bit of sun, but owners can mitigate the risks of harmful injuries by taking precautions. The Animal Medical Center encourages owners to keep window screens in place, or close windows if screens aren't available. If owners have a balcony, it's recommended not to let the cat go on it as they could easily fall.

After Brown watched Ezra climbing the ladder in horror, she told Newsweek about how the terrifying moment unfolded.

She said: "My husband and I had a three-day weekend and we needed to get many things done, but at this point we were taking a break. In Ezra's everyday fashion, he likes to scratch on the back door to go outside.

"So, he was just hanging out and I caught him going up the ladder, but I didn't want my husband to startle him when he turned around. I grabbed my phone and began to video.

"I was alerting my husband, who wasn't as impressed as I was. But I knew he would scare Ezra with his dad voice."

Brown shared the video of Ezra's antics on TikTok (@ezra_baby1) on May 29 and it's already amassed over 1.5 million views and more than 313,000 likes. Writing on TikTok, Brown added "He's ok" to reassure concerned viewers, but she joked that her "husband not so much" after he failed to rescue the cat from falling.

The response that the video has received in just a few days has been completely unexpected, and Ezra has earned many devoted followers since it was shared.

"Our reaction after this video has been crazy," Brown continued. "We went from not having a single view on the video, to having over 4,000 overnight."

The viral video has continued to attract viewers ever since, and it's even generated more than 1,500 comments from amazed TikTokers.

One comment reads: "He was doing so good before you guys spooked him."

Another person wrote: "Husband did not understand the assignment."

One TikTok user commented: "He is fine, now he has 8 lives left."

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