British student breaks neck in fall from Cyprus hotel balcony

Stock photo, Ayia Napa: PA

A British student has broken her neck in a fall from a second-floor hotel balcony in Cyprus.

Rachel Walker, 21, broke her neck, fractured a rib and suffered serious spinal injuries in the fall from the Napa Prince hotel in Ayia Napa this summer.

She had gone to Ayia Napa with a friend to get a summer job in a bar.

Now recovering at home in Dunfermline, Scotland, she told the Dunfermline Press: "I remember the entire thing until I hit the ground. There were five people in the room at the time and I was on the second floor of the hotel.

"It was a low balcony. Someone was shouting at me from outside the hotel grounds, I went running over and underestimated the height of the balcony.

"I fell about 25 feet onto solid concrete. All my friends came down and said my eyes were rolling to the back of my head.

"I was in hospital out there for two weeks, completely immobilised, before I was stretchered back to the UK, so it was quite traumatic."

Rachel has now had to defer the final year of her fashion business degree at Glasgow Caledonian University due to the severity of her injuries.

"The neurosurgeon said it would be too much for me. There is still a risk the neck fracture can displace so I could still need an operation."

Last month, British tourists were warned of the dangers of balcony falls after the shocking rise in injuries and fatalities.

At the time, Foreign Office figures showed that there had been 13 incidents of young people falling from balconies this year.

Just a week after the warnings were issued, a British teenager fell 30ft from a balcony in Magaluf and was badly injured.

Three of these cases resulted in death while others had been seriously injured. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office and ABTA The Travel Association decided to join forces on a campaign to help prevent balcony incidents among young people in popular holiday resorts.

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