http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/12/nyregion/12fall.html

A 29-year-old man plunges 17 stories in the atrium of a hotel in Minneapolis, landing on an overhang.

A 22-year-old amateur sky diver goes into free fall more than a mile above the earth when his main parachute and reserve chute fail to open. He lands in a three-foot-deep duck pond.

Both men survived.

The question of why was echoed when a window-washing platform gave way on Friday and two brothers preparing to clean the black-glass skin of an apartment building on the Upper East Side fell 47 floors. Why did one die and the other survive, though he is grievously injured?