A South African man survived an 18-floor plunge from a Cape Town hotel room and was well enough to call out to amazed rescuers, police said on Thursday.
Nicholas du Plooy broke both arms and a leg and also injured his neck late on Tuesday after he toppled out of a 19th-floor window at the Cape Town Ritz Hotel late on Tuesday.
Nearby restaurant worker Gino Del Giovine told the Cape Argus newspaper he was alerted to the accident by passers-by who burst into his business yelling “Hey, we’ve just seen a guy flying off the top of the Ritz!”
“I was expecting a real mess,” Del Giovine told the newspaper.
Instead, he and others rushing to the scene found du Plooy had crash-landed on the roof of the hotel’s ground floor reception, his fall apparently broken by metal roofing sheets.
He was conscious and speaking. “He said, ’I need help, my neck is in pain’,” Del Giovine told the newspaper.
After treatment at a nearby hospital, medics pronounced du Plooy “stable, talking and fine.”
Police said they believed du Plooy’s plunge was accidental but would not speculate on the circumstances. “There’s no foul play suspected. The guy just fell out of the window,” police spokeswoman Priscilla Ndongeni said.