An elderly man is in an unstable condition after falling several metres onto his head from a walkway in Malabar, in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, on Monday morning.
Francis Hutchen had leaned back against the allegedly “rotten council railing” on Prince Edward St at Malabar, and toppled backwards on the rocks below about 11am.
He had been on the Randwick City Council walkway below his house with a gardener, when he went to take a moment’s rest.
“He stood up and just leaned against the fence backwards, just to have a rest … and he toppled down the cliff face,” Francis’ grandson, Jon Hutchen, 37, told 7NEWS.com.au.
“He hit the rocks with his head on the way down … he basically did a backflip.”
NSW Ambulance told 7NEWS.com.au it recorded a 3m fall when paramedics arrived — but Jon, who received a call from the gardener moments after the fall, said: “It’s like a 6m drop, basically, from where you stand on top.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t die on the spot.”
Francis drifted in and out of consciousness, as paramedics treated him at the scene and took him to St Vincent’s Hospital emergency department, where he currently remains in an unstable condition.
Francis broke the C3 and T12 vertebra in his neck and thoracic spine, and sustained temporal and frontal brain bleeds, his grandson, Jon said.
“He’s not out of the woods yet, we’re still waiting to hear from the neurosurgeon today, but he’s not in a good way,” he said.
Jon said problems with the council railing were not new, noting multiple repair requests had been made to Randwick City Council.
“The fence is rotted. The council came out, not even a year ago, to fix the fence and all they did was put a single screw through the fence on the opposite side,” he said.
Jon said the placement of the screw rendered it useless.
He told 7NEWS.com.au he would be attempting to fix the railing with Randwick City Council on Tuesday, “so no one else falls through it”.
7NEWS.com.au has contacted Randwick City Council for comment.
