The Highest Fall

“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy…” [Jude 24]

On January 21, 2007, a Wisconsin man, Joshua S. Hanson, and two friends were in Minneapolis for a dart tournament. After a few hours out drinking they returned to their Hyatt Regency Hotel about 1:30 in the morning. They took an elevator to the 17th floor and were evidently horsing around. For some reason, 29-year-old Hanson ran from the elevator down a short hallway and apparently lost his balance and crashed through the large double-paned window. He tumbled down 16 floors and crashed into the awning of the hotel’s main entrance overhang. Amazingly, he survived. His most serious injury was a broken leg. Minneapolis Police Lieutenant Dale Barsness said, “This man must have an angel on his shoulder.”

The record for surviving the highest fall without a parachute is held by a Serbian woman, Vesna Vulović. On January 26, 1972, she was flying over the Czech Republic. Croat terrorists had placed a bomb onboard JAT Yugoslav Flight 364, on which Vulović was a flight attendant. The 22-year-old wasn’t even supposed to be on that flight; her schedule had been mixed up with another flight attendant. The explosion tore the DC-9 to pieces, but Vulović survived. She remained strapped into her seat in the middle section of the plane that was right above the wings. The assembly spiraled down 33,000 feet then struck the snow-covered flank of a mountain. Her injuries included a fractured skull, two broken legs, and three broken vertebrae, one of which left her temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. She was also in a coma for 27 days. She regained the use of her legs after several months of surgeries. Vulović was the only survivor on the flight, and not only lived to tell about it, but continued working for JAT at a desk job following her full recovery. Vulović later became a national hero in Yugoslavia.

The Bible teaches that all men have morally fallen, but there is a way you can survive the fall. The Scriptures tell us God guides the steps of the person who chooses to serve Him. “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand” (Psalm 37:24). Psalm 145 says, “The Lord upholds all who fall, and raises up all who are bowed down” (verse 14). With the Lord upholding us, we have great hope!