Spanish teenager survives seven storey fall

A Spanish teenager trying to sneak out of her parents apartment in the dead of night to go to a birthday party fell from a seventh storey window but her dive was broken by a clothesline and survived.

The 16-year-old, whose name was not released, was in serious but stable condition today at San Agustin Hospital in Aviles, 250 miles north of Madrid.

She suffered a crushed vertebra, a broken arm and other injuries, said hospital officials.

The girl had asked permission to go to a birthday party at 2:30 am but her father said no. Later, thinking her parents were asleep, she tried to slip out the front door but was caught.

Her father then apparently locked the girl in her room, so she climbed out the window and tried to crawl along the ledge to the living room, only to find that window locked.

On the way back to her room, the youth lost her balance and grabbed onto a pipe but it gave way and she fell, landing first on a clothesline in an interior courtyard.

The first person to attend to her was a neighbour who happened to be a nurse.