UGA student falls eight stories and survives

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A University of Georgia student survived a plunge from her eighth-floor apartment, authorities said Monday, after she had been “dancing on a couch near a window” and fell out.

The terrifying fall from the Rambler Athens Apartments at 558 W. Broad St. in Athens happened at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday, according to police records.

The “student was dancing on a couch near a window that was open” and “fell from the 8th floor window and landed on the pool deck below,” the Athens-Clarke County Police Department said in a statement to NBC News.

Remarkably, 21-year-old Virginia native Kristen Elizabeth Sargent appeared to have survived this harrowing plunge.

“At this time, she is conscious and alert but seriously injured,” police added.

A cushioned metal bench might have broken the 5-foot-7, 115-pound woman’s fall.

“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,” according to a report by ACC police Sgt. Erik Ellison.

“When I arrived, the victim was on the ground near the pool, which at this complex 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."


The initial probe “thus far suggests that this was an accident” and that the victim “will survive,” Ellison added.

A representative for the university could not be immediately reached for comment.

Rambler Athens, where the near-fatal fall happened, is a student housing community that sells itself as an upscale building that includes a “state-of-the-art” gym, a “resort-style pool,” coffee bar and pet care services.

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