A year ago, skateboarder Jake Brown proved from which height a man must plummet, onto an unforgiving wooden platform, to have both shoes fly from his feet on impact.
Answer: 46 feet. Or about 4 1/2 stories.
That's the vertical drop the skateboarder endured during his fifth and final run of the big-air competition on the mega-ramp at the 2007 X Games.
Brown's flailing as he plunged, as if tossed from a burning building, is Generation Y's version of "the agony of defeat," a highlight reel for the ages.
The resounding thud, followed by an intense Staples Center hush, was something eyewitnesses may never forget.
"I thought he was dead," recalled Pierre-Luc Gagnon, a competitor and Brown's close friend. "At first I thought he was going to have compound fractures of both legs. I thought he was going to be paralyzed.
"Then I rolled up to him and he wasn't breathing. He was completely out and I didn't know if he was still alive."
Miraculously, Brown, who regained consciousness minutes later, sustained a mild concussion, small fractures in his spine and wrist, and bruises to his liver and lung.
He was hospitalized for three days and began skating a few months later, on a traditional vert ramp.
Tonight, as the X Games begin their 14th season -- with a four-day competition at Staples Center and the Home Depot Center -- the diminutive Australian skateboarder will resume big-air competition on the daunting mega-ramp.
"I've tried to put it aside and just move forward," Brown, 33, said this week before practice. "Obviously I still remember it, but I've got a lot of energy focused on what I've got to do now."
What many may not recall is that Brown won the silver medal last year, based on a remarkable third run that included a 360-degree spin across the 70-foot gap and a 540 above the quarterpipe wall.
The difficulty factor is unfathomable for fans and casual skateboarders. Mega-ramp skaters drop almost straight down a 70-foot roll-in, then sail across the gap with nothing but hands or gravity pressing the boards to their feet.
They land on a downhill ramp at nearly 40 mph and must compose themselves to launch up and above a 27-foot quarterpipe, perform another trick, and get back in position to negotiate a near-sheer drop down the quarterpipe wall.
Brown, on that third run, earned a 95.33 to vault ahead of Bob Burnquist, a veteran skateboarder from Vista, Calif., who had scored a 94.33 on his second run. In third place going into the final round was Gagnon with a 93.00.
