mclewin.com

I'm not even sure how to start, so I'll start at the end.

I'm on the stairs at the halfway point landing, where they turn 90 degrees, holding Ella. She is screaming crying, and not hurt too badly as far as I can tell. Melanie is yelling from the kitchen "what happened? what happened?".

The most logical thing to do is ask Ella. All I know is that I found her flat on the floor crying on the landing of the stairs, and that we did not hear "thump thump thump thump thump" before we heard the cry. She's been great with stairs for months now. We don't even worry about it.

So I asked Ella. "What happened?"

"I was up there" she says, pointing straight up. Where she was pointing didn't fully make sense. Where our stairs make a 90 degree turn halfway up they parallel an upstairs walkway with a railing and bars. We've connected a six foot scratching post tower at this point, so the cats have something to play on. Ella didn't get up on that - there's simply no route up for somebody her size.

"Where were you?"

Through the tears she choked out "Right there!!" pointing again to the spot next to the top platform of the cat's scratching post. This point is about five and a half feet up from where I found her. This is not looking good.

"Right here?" I ask, standing up and reaching my hand up to where she described"

"Yesssssss"

"Oh. How did you get there?"

"I was right there"

"Yes, and how did you get there?"

"Right there" followed by more screams.

"Did you fly there?"

"No, I came from there" as she pointed to the top of the stairs.

I just sat in disbelief that the results were not worse.

As near as I can tell, she walked along a 3" deep ledge that starts at the top of the stairs, outside the bars. She must have held the bars as she worked her way sideways. Once she reached the scratching post she probably paused. This must be when Melanie and I were in the kitchen preparing dinner and we heard a gleeful "I'm high like Mingo!". We thought nothing of it.

She either stayed there, not sure what to do, or attempted to get up onto the scratching post. Or did did that, and then tried to climb off of it. We'll never know. All I am certain of is that she fell half a story straight down.

Only time will tell if this is her last base jump.