The Wire: Real-Life Omar Survived a Jump from the Sixth Floor, Not the Fourth

The Scene:
In Season 5 of The Wire, a gritty police drama about crime in Baltimore, resident badass Omar Little finds himself outgunned in a shootout and decides to escape by jumping out the window. Well, that doesn't sound very badass to us ... oh, hold on, did we mention that the window is on the fourth floor of an apartment building?

Somehow, Omar survives the fall and goes on to k!ll a bunch of people in revenge. The Wire always had a reputation for being more realistic than your average cop drama, so this moment struck some fans as a little odd -- one critic at The Guardian even wondered if the writers had been drinking when they came up with the scene. What's next, Detective McNulty fighting a mountain lion?
The Reality:
True fans of The Wire (the ones who got the decoder ring after they turned in the box tops from the Cap'n Crunch tie-in) know that the show's major characters are based on people creator David Simon met while working as a journalist in Baltimore. This includes Omar himself, who is actually an amalgam of a few folks -- including a guy named Donnie Andrews, who, according to David Simon, actually made the leap from that episode in a similar situation. Only in real life, it wasn't the fourth floor: He made that jump from the sixth.

We've previously talked about how falls from higher than the third floor are rarely survivable ... the key word being "rarely," meaning that it does happen. In fact, people have survived falls from as high as a 47th floor or even a freaking airplane. Simon claims that he met other people who confirmed real-life Omar's story, so he wanted to include it in the show. When they were shooting the episode, however, they realized that the building they had only went up to the fifth floor, so Simon decided that "The fourth is fine. They're not gonna believe it anyway."
Oh, and by the way, if you're wondering what a guy who makes sixth-floor jumps and survives looks like in real life, just look at that scene again: Donnie Andrews actually plays Omar's friend, who gets shot in the head during the confrontation.



5 True Stories Cut from Movies for Being Too Unrealistic | Cracked.com

More stories in the link but I thought this was a crazy story I had not yet heard about The Wire.

But did he get up and walk to the store, confronting drug dealers along the way?

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[pic]Well I think this helps answer that other threads question about which show is the best.
I knew most of the characters are based on real life people even Marlo Stanfield but Damn!! Good !!

he broke his leg. tho, ppl acting like omar was just chillin

If I remember that episode, Omar was actually hiding in the basement nursing a broke leg.

Yup Omar jumped broke his leg and hid in a closet in the same building.

I think all you guys missed the point about Omar being a blend of 4 different people David Simon came in contact with in his professional life.

We're talking about Donnie Andrews, the guy who actually made the jump.

niccas have no sense of humor though, B. Why so serious? Of course his leg was !!ed up.

ohh !! well here I am
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good !!..thats one of my fav clips ever in the wire

put me onto that song also..

Omar Comin!

damn, thas crazy.

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damn this show based on real life characters I never knew that


one of the best shows of all time, it was so real and gritty man, the characters were basically real life people

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