Man Thankful He Doesn't Remember 16-Story Plunge
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Just a month after his 16-story fall and merciful landing onto a hotel overhang, Joshua Hanson is off crutches from a broken leg, mostly healed from his other injuries and thankful he has no memory of the plunge.
"I feel really lucky I don't remember it because I probably would have some pretty serious nightmares," said the 29-year-old bar owner from Blair, Wis., who crashed out a hotel window Jan. 20 after a night drinking with his friends.
"I'm walking without a crutch, I'm getting around pretty good. I mean, I feel really good," Hanson said Tuesday after a couple weeks of recuperation at his parents' home.
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His two collapsed lungs and torn trachea have healed, and he's been slowly returning to work at Heine's bar.
Hanson recalls drinking with his pals at a couple of bars in St. Paul before going back to the Minneapolis Hyatt Regency. They stopped by a darts tournament at the hotel before heading to their rooms in the early morning hours.
"Then we come back off the elevator and that's when, for whatever reason ... I decided to take off running," Hanson said. "I don't why I took off running or what really led up to it, but — I did."
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Sprinting down the hallway alone, he said he was confused by the reflection on the window pane at the end. With a crash, the 275-pound former prep football player and wrestler broke through a double-paned window with a safety bar.
He fell onto an asphalt-covered overhang one floor above the street. The overhang probably saved his life because it helped cushion his fall, according to emergency officials and a physics professor.
Asked if he could explain why he survived, Hanson said: "I wish I knew, for real I do. Somebody had a plan for me." He added that one reason he survived is his 8-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn.
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The fall has made him more contemplative and given him a fresh perspective, he said, though he didn't know whether it would cause him to drink less.
"I went to church the first Sunday I got home, no doubt about it," he said. "There ain't too many days go by that I don't thank God that I'm still here."