‘I DIDN’T THINK I WAS EVER GOING TO BE BACK TO NORMAL’
Balcony fall dad says he was scared he wouldn’t recover
A HOLIDAYMAKER who suffered severe head injuries after falling from a hotel balcony in Magaluf says he was terrified he would not recover.
Andrew Phillips was warned it could take him 10 years to recover following the fall from the first-floor hotel room during his holiday last year. He suffered a bleed between the brain and his skull, needed a metal plate in his face and couldn’t use his left arm.
But one year on, the 26-year-old is back on his feet and employed as a bricklayer.
“I was scared I was not going to work again,” the dad-of-one said.
“I didn’t think I was ever going to be back to normal. It was scary because I wanted to be back to normal straight away.
“When they said 10 years that was something that scared me.”
He said he is “all back to normal” now.
“My head was all over the shop at first and I started acting like a fiveyear-old kid,” he said.
“My mother had moved a couple of years ago and I still thought she lived at the old address. “My mind went a bit backwards.” Andrew still can’t remember the accident.
“I don’t remember going back to the hotel,” he said.
“I was awake in hospital after a few days, although I was in a coma for five.
“I remember bits. One of my friends came over and I thought he was there for a day. But he was there for five days.
“It’s all blurry because I was on a lot of medication.”
After two weeks Andrew was flown back to his home in Brynglas, Newport.
“I don’t know what to think about it, I try not to,” he said.
“I don’t want it to be a burden all my life, I try to blank it out.”
Speaking about the time of the incident, when he and his friends had been out drinking, he said: “I was with the boys I was, so all of us were.”
“It was the first day of our holiday so we were straight away, as soon as we got there.”
His friends had asked him to join them again on holiday this year.
“All of my friends are in Benidorm now,” he said.
“I didn’t go because it is a year on and it would be too much like déjà vu. Same people, same time, I didn’t want to take the risk.”
People are “always” asking him about what happened. It was “nice to have the support”, he said.
The accident was on Thursday, May 25.
“I had a text off my mate saying it was a year ago today that he was sat by me crying and thinking he would never see me again.
“I lost a lot of weight after the accident and he would come over and bring food and make sure I was eating.”
He added: “It was bad but over the weeks I got better.
“I damaged all the nerves in my arm so I had no use of my left arm for two or three months.
“But after physio and hydrotherapy that helped with the use of my arm.
“I had been waiting for an MRI scan for months and by the time I had it my arm was better.”
He told his son, Rylee, he had broken his arm.
“I have a metal plate in my face, and he used to say, ‘What’s that?’ so he knew I had an accident,” he said.
“I was in hospital in Majorca on his birthday last year so I have a lot of making up to do.”
Andrew said he “didn’t mean to scare anyone”.
“I didn’t mean it to happen,” he said.
“Obviously you have only one chance, and I nearly lost my one chance.”