bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

sponsorType

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

A man was recovering in a hospital yesterday after surviving an apparently drunken plunge from the 15th floor of his New Zealand apartment building.
Police said the 20-year-old man discovered he was locked out of his 14th-floor flat in the Volt Apartment building in downtown Auckland at about 2am on Sunday.
He had decided to try to climb down the outside of the building from a flat directly above his.
Police said he was trying to land on his balcony when he fell, instead landing on the roof of an adjacent building.
He was at first listed in critical condition but had improved yesterday to a satisfactory condition.
The New Zealand Herald newspaper identified the injured man as Tom Stilwell, a Briton who is in New Zealand on a working holiday.
Friend Dave Thomas told the newspaper that Stilwell had suffered neck and back fractures, a broken wrist and suspected internal injuries.
Volt Apartment resident Geraldine Bautista told the newspaper that Stilwell knocked on her door on the 15th floor at about 2am. She said he appeared to have been drinking but she was not fearful of him.
"He just requested 'Can you please let me jump off from the balcony? I will not bother you, just let me use your balcony'," Bautista said.
She had never thought he would follow through.
"In my mind I thought, OK, I'll just let you see that it's really impossible. I didn't think he'd jump, because it's really scary," Bautista told the newspaper.
She said that after she opened the door, he quickly walked through the flat and climbed over the railing on the balcony. Bautista said she grabbed at his hand but he fell.
"It happened so fast. It happened within seconds. I couldn't even scream for help. He was like a paper falling from here," she said.
St John Ambulance medical director Dr Tony Smith told the paper that surviving falls from such heights was "extraordinarily unusual" but that the roof of the low-rise building far below probably broke Stilwell's fall enough to save his life.


Locked out drinker tries to climb into flat but falls 15 storeys - and survives

Auckland skyline. Photo: Getty Images

News

World