A 15-year-old boy who survived falling 16 floors through a parking lot roof and onto a concrete floor is up and walking just days after his death-defying accident, according to news reports out of New Zealand.
The New Zealand Herald said the teenager stunned doctors at the Middlemore Hospital in Auckland when he began walking on Monday, just four days after he was admitted.
On Thursday night, the boy fell 14 stories from the balcony of an apartment complex and crashed into the parking lot roof and then onto a concrete floor two stories further. Crashing into the roof most likely saved his life, the Herald reported.
Neil Thomson, an associate professor of physics at New Zealand's University of Otag, told the newspaper that someone falling from that height would reach roughly 62 miles per hour by the time of impact.
"[His] friends will be shaken up," Bradley Fenner, the headmaster of the boy's school, told the Herald. "But we are celebrating his miraculous survival, and we're looking forward to having him back amongst us at school."
The teen sustained a broken wrist, broken rib, gouged leg and internal injuries from the 160-foot fall.
He will be released from the hospital on Friday and is expected to make a full recovery, New Zealand media reported.
The Herald reported that the cause of the fall is unknown, and that police are not investigating further. They inspected the chest-high, glass balcony and found it safe, the paper said.
