Irish backpacker survives fall from three-storey hostel

A 26-YEAR-OLD Dundalk man was in a serious but stable condition in a Melbourne Hospital yesterday after falling three storeys from the roof garden of an Australian hostel.

Backpacker Bryan Short is thought to have been trying to look down to the street from the top a steel barrier on the third floor of the Global Backpackers Hostel, in Melbourne, when he fell.

According to Australian newspaper The Age, the young man had been drinking with friends before the accident.

Global Backpackers’ part-time manager Greg O’Reilly said that Mr Short was very lucky that plastic chairs had been spread out where he landed, which helped to break his fall.

“If he hadn’t hit the plastic chairs down there, he would’ve hit solid ground and I doubt he would’ve been walking away from it,” he said.

The emergency services were called by fellow backpackers. A Metropolitan Ambulance Service spokesman said when they arrived the injured man was still conscious and actually apologised for making such a fuss.

“It’s a potentially life-threatening fall and we treated it as if he had life-threatening injuries,” said paramedic John Goodfellow.

“We stabilised and immobilised him... about 15 minutes after we arrived his condition changed slightly and he started to complain of discomfort in the chest.”

Mr Short’s fellow backpacker resident Michael Crane recalled seeing the Irishman sitting on top of the steel barrier on the rooftop courtyard.

“The next thing I know, I hear a bump and I look down and call out to him, ‘Brian! Brian!’ I ran down to him and we all tried to help him as much as we could,” he said. “The Irish, we expect them to do stuff to entertain us, something funny or something kind of stupid, but that was just totally unexpected.”

Mr Short was still inRoyal Melbourne Hospital yesterday but local sources said he is expected to make a good recovery and be released in the next few days.