Drunken ‘idiot’ in 15-storey fall

A 20-year-old British man who miraculously survived a fall from a 15th-storey balcony in New Zealand while drunkenly trying to break into his apartment has labelled himself an “idiot”.

Tom Stilwell plummeted from the balcony in his Auckland apartment block, suffering broken bones and cuts but leaving experts amazed that he was still alive.

Stilwell had arrived home to find himself locked out of his 14th-storey apartment and decided to clamber down to his balcony from a neighbour’s property one floor above. Instead he slipped, plunging 13 floors before an adjacent roof broke his fall.

Flatmate Dave Thomas said Stilwell, from Brighton, who is in New Zealand on a working holiday, was unable to talk when he awoke at Auckland Central Hospital because he had tubes down his throat.

“After a nurse explained to him about what had happened, he wrote on his little squiggly board ‘what an idiot’.” He said Stilwell was now “back to his old jokey self” but could recall nothing about his escapade.

Stilwell was expected to make a full recovery.

Thomas, 22, said his friend had had a “fair bit to drink”. He said it was unusual behaviour for a man “normally the sensible one out of all of us”.

Stilwell fell after waking up Geraldine Bautista, and asking if he could climb from her balcony to his. She said she took him outside, thinking he would change his mind once he saw that it was impossible, but he grabbed the railing instead.

“He never said anything... I grabbed his hand and then at that time... he fell down. I thought I was dreaming.

“It happened so fast.”