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Fife student suffers broken neck in Ayia Napa balcony fall

One of the main strips in Ayia Napa, Cyprus.
One of the main strips in Ayia Napa, Cyprus.

A Fife student broke her neck after falling 25ft from a foreign hotel balcony and survived.

Rachel Walker slammed on to concrete and, as well as breaking her neck, she fractured a rib and suffered serious spinal injuries after the fall in Cyprus.

Rachel (21) was staying at the Napa Prince Hotel in Ayia Napa and was left immobilised in a Cypriot hospital for two weeks before returning to Scotland.

Rachel, from Dunfermline, said she remembered everything until hitting the ground.

She said: ”There were five people in the room at the time and I was on the second floor of the hotel. Someone was shouting on me from outside the hotel grounds.

”I went running over and over-estimated the height of the balcony. I fell about 25ft on to solid concrete. All my friends came down and said my eyes were rolling into the back of my head.”

Ms Walker was working in a bar Ayia Napa and had arrived the month earlier with a friend.

Ms Walker’s parents, Anne and John, flew out to Cyprus to organise her return home.

Ms Walker said: ”I was in hospital out there for two weeks, completely immobilised, before I was stretchered back to the UK, so it was quite traumatic.

”I didn’t realised how severe the situation was until I got back, because of the language barrier.

”I’ve never broken a bone in my life before. The doctors were all saying: You go the full way don’t you?”

Ms Walker has had to defer the final year of her fashion business degree at Glasgow Caledonian University due to the seriousness of her injuries.

She has to wear a brace and is only able to walk short distances.

She said: ”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.”

A campaign was launched last month to try to reduce the number of young people killed and injured in falls from balconies on holiday.

There have been three British people killed and 10 have been injured in balcony falls so far this year.

malexander@thecourier.co.uk