If you're unfamiliar with the term, defenestration means to throw a person or thing from a window. In this case, I am writing about defenestration from a first-person perspective because I, by my own accident, have taken a tumble from a window.
Falling out of a window is something unlike anything most people will experience in their lives. A possible near-death experience that can elicit slow-motion perception and other life-altering visions as they fall, defenestration is a particularly unsettling way to die or become perilously injured. Gravity takes hold, your senses are heightened, yet you know nothing of your position in relation to the ground or the window you've come from.
Once used as a means to kill enemies in battle and in combat, defenestration now typically occurs in moments of passion or instances of extreme clumsiness. Read on to see what it's like in the modern age to fall out of a window (and live).
http://www.ranker.com/list/defenestration-best-and-worst-things/danielle-dauenhauer,
Occasionally, There Will Be TV Shows and Movies That Completely Unnerve You
Shortly after falling from my bedroom window, I attended a screening of director Sofia Coppola's first film, The Virgin Suicides. In the movie, one of the characters launches herself from a window onto a spiked fence. Excruciating.
On "Lost", when they finally revealed that Locke became paralyzed (spoiler if you've waited 10 years to get started with the series) after his father threw him out of a eighth story window, that was pretty bad.
The opening sequence on "Mad Men" where the shadow falls down a building? Uncomfortable.
The only episode I ever saw of "Grey's Anatomy" where a pair of people got impaled by a giant piece of rebar? THE. WORST. (Granted, that's more about being impaled than falling out of a window, but I associate one with the other).
And since my defenestration went hand in hand (bar in cheek?) with my impaling, I also get gems like this from "Family Guy":
You Will Never Be Okay Around Windows Again
I don't have a fear of heights, but I get uneasy when I'm anywhere near a window more than two floors up. The week after I took my tumble, I had a job interview in the glass encased fourth floor office of an editor whose publication I wanted to write for; his desk, and the chair I was to be interviewed in, were against a window looking down on a large swath of concrete. As he asked me questions about my writing and life experience, I gave choppy responses as I casually/not so casually inched away from the window.
When my interviewer finally asked what was prompting my strange behavior, I told him I hadn't felt comfortable next to windows since I fell out of one. The look on his face was ALMOST worth the discomfort.
Side note: got the job.
Not All Windows Are Equipped With Foam Pits for Landing
I got stuck by my butt on the security bars of the apartment under me. In the end (pun intended) it probably saved me from a far worse fate, but there are plenty of people who fall out of windows onto the ground. Broken arms, legs, spines, concussions; ain't nobody got time for that!
Was It Caught On Tape? You're Famous Now!
The blinking red light of a video camera may not the thing you want to see when you've just fallen out of a window, but if the person who filmed it sells it to the media or puts it on YouTube or pretty much lets anyone know of its existence, you're going to gain some notoriety. The guy who filmed my rescue effort sold it to anyone who would bite and I've since appeared on the likes of "Good Morning America," "Ripley's Believe It Or Not," "Maury," and even "Oprah."
If You Go Out Backwards, You Have No Idea What Up and Down Are
The argument can be made that if you don't know something bad is coming, that it won't be as bad when it happens. In the case of falling out of a window, there is not typically ANY good to come, so knowing what's about to happen is really preferable.
If you go out a window backwards, all you know is that you're in a different place from where you started. As gravity takes hold and does its thing, you may find yourself in any permutation of up, down, and sideways positions (depending on the height you're falling from) before you reach your final destination. It's scary.
Everything Happens in Slow Motion Until It Doesn't
There's a certain shock to falling out a window; you probably contemplate it hundreds of times in your life but never give a thought to it actually happening. When you do fall out of a window - when you REALIZE you're falling - things go by in slow motion.
Whether this is what you hear about when people say their lives flashed before their eyes in a near-death experience (I just saw the sides of the neighboring buildings) or a surge of adrenaline through the body that makes the brain process things faster than normal, there's something very cinematic about the descent from normal into the ether of parts yet unknown.
When you do land (or at least stop), everything snaps violently back into real time, forcing you to quickly assess your surroundings and figure out what's happened. My stop came courtesy of a pair of security spikes, but I didn't know that when it happened. I was upside down, looking out, and unaware that I was stuck. The few details I could make shape of told my brain I was hanging on and not to let go, so I didn't. Well, not until the fire department came and informed me it was a steel fence - not my superhuman strength - that was holding me up.
You Will Never Be Without a Story at a Party
People pull this on me ALL THE TIME.
"Oh, do you know my friend Danielle? No? Well, you may not have MET her, but trust me, you KNOW her. Tell 'em, Danielle!"
All. The. Time.
Don't get me wrong, there are heaps of free drinks to be gotten from telling stories about how you fell out of a window and lived, but people that fall out of windows are not defined STRICTLY by that fact. I can tell you stories about working in an office, or that vintage table I almost bought, or the waiter I could have sworn was flirting with me, or how my cats were fighting last night.
...On second thought, come here, let me tell you about Oprah.
No One - NO ONE - Will Believe You Were Sober When You Fell
People don't just fall out of windows; if they did, we probably wouldn't have so many windows in the world. Me, I was clumsy and a little bit careless. I sat on a pillow at the end of a bed that was level with an open (save for the fly screen) window and fell out. Misfortune has a lot to do with falling or being thrown from the window, but if you fall without the interference of another person, animal, or thing, NO ONE will believe you were sober; at least not 100%.
A friend I've known nearly as long as I've had three holes in my butt claims I told him one night (while I was drunk, natch) that despite my litany of protests otherwise, I took back my claim of sobriety when I fell out the window. I don't know WHAT I told him when we were drinking, but I know I was sober on all accounts when the fall occurred. Does he believe that? Nah.
You Might Get Poles Stuck in Your Butt
Years after my own defenestration, I made this "Game of Thrones" sigil for my house. It's meant to be two spears in as many butt cheeks because, you know, my house is one with security bars that get stuck in my @ss.
In case you didn't watch the video attached to this story of defenestration (watch the video, dammit!), I didn't fall to the ground after accidentally falling out of my window; instead, I got bluntly (and forcefully) attached to the security bars of the apartment below mine. I dare say, looking back, I'd rather have the bars in my bum than say, parts of a bush/tree that would track leaves and bugs in with them, but then again, I'd rather have nothing in my behind at all (not a double entendre, you dirty birdie).
If You Are More Than A Few Floors Up, You May Go Splat When You Land
The year that I fell out of my window, at least two other people fell out of theirs. One kid went from four stories up and LIVED, but was either really badly paralyzed or left in a vegetative state and the other went from about the same height and died (details on those who suffered a less fortunate defenestration aftermath than mine are hard to find).
Of course, if you fall out of a really high window (like this idiot in Canada), you're probably just going to want to enjoy the fall and not think about how many mops it's going to take to remove you from the sidewalk later.