Is it a bird? is it a 'plane? No, it's the cable guy...

Chris Hoyle heard the scream and looked up from her desk to see a man falling past her window - head first.

"His head was down, his feet were up, and he came whizzing by screaming," she told the Contra Costa Times.

She ran outside and shouted to a man near the five-story building, "Is everyone all right? I just saw a man fall off the roof."

"Yeah, that would be me," Ken Larsen, 34, told her. His arm was scratched and his shoulder bruised, but nothing was broken. In fact, he said, he landed on his feet.

Larsen had been laying telecommunications cable on the roof, walking backwards and pulling it. His co-worker holding the spool yelled, "Hold it a minute," but Larsen was already stepping back - and off the edge.

Halfway to the ground, Larsen realized he might survive. The cable he still clutched was slowing his fall.

On the roof, Rick Williver, 46, had thrown his weight against the spinning spool. When the cable stopped unwinding, he peered over the edge.

Five stories below, Larsen was walking around.

After unwinding 65 feet (19.5 meters) of cable and crashing through tree branches, he had landed on his feet. "It was like landing after a parachute jump," Larsen said.

The paramedics who checked him over Thursday found only bruises and scrapes.

"They told me to go buy a lottery ticket," Larsen said. "And I'm going to."