A 21-year-old student is recovering in intensive care after falling from an eighth-floor window while dancing on a sofa. Kristen Sargent plummeted from an apartment in The Rambler, a college building in Athens, Georgia, shortly after 7.30pm on Saturday (September 26).
Celebration turns to horror
Sargent was celebrating the University of Georgia's American football victory when she fell through the window screen and onto the ground below. Her father, Richard Sargent, told Channel 2 Action News that his daughter has acknowledged she was "lucky that she's alive and we're blessed. She's a good fighter, and so she's going to be OK."
Responding officer Erik Ellison wrote that officers were dispatched to the building at approximately 7:37pm. "I arrived and spoke with bystanders who advised that the female victim had been dancing on a couch or air mattress which was near an open window and had apparently fallen through the screen and onto the ground below," he wrote.
Impact and recovery
When Ellison arrived, the victim was on the ground near the pool, which is in a courtyard on the second floor of the building. "It appeared from the scene that the victim had struck a metal bench as she fell, as the cushion on the bench had some blood on it, and the armrest of the bench had broken off," he added.
Ellison noted that all witnesses and the victim suggested it was nothing more than a horrific accident. "At this time it appears that the victim will survive," he wrote. According to the New York Post, witnesses reportedly said a lounge chair may have broken her fall before she hit the ground.
