Cleaner's plunge shock for mother

Louisa Kuypers fell about 30m from this building. Photo / Richard Robinson.

It was second time unlucky for the mother of a young abseiling window cleaner who survived a four-storey plummet on Friday.

Louisa Kuypers, 18, had been suspended off the side of a building tenanted by Lion in Newmarket, Auckland, when she fell about 30m to the ground. She is in Auckland City Hospital in a stable condition, improving from critical on Friday.

Auckland Hospital says her condition is continuing to improve and remains stable this morning.

Her mother, Josie Kuypers, said yesterday it was the second fall involving a young female abseiler inside two months and she had assumed it was her daughter both times.

The first time, at the Metro Centre in early December, it turned about to be another woman.

She said Louisa was one of only a few women her age who abseiled as part of their profession, so friends and family always worried when they heard there had been an accident.

"She's always done lots of crazy things, kayaking and caving."

When Kuypers first saw her daughter after the accident on Friday, she appeared to be in a lot of pain and could only moan. The teenager managed to sleep on Friday night, and woke in an improved state.

She has broken ribs and a suspected broken collarbone. She has large bruises across parts of her body where she landed, Kuypers said. A laceration on her head appeared to be only superficial, and doctors said Louisa had no brain injuries, she said.

"To think she fell all that way and only fractured a few bones."

Meanwhile, the accident brought back memories for the woman who survived in December, Mikaela Blayney.

"I thought 'oh no, not another one'. And she's so young as well, I felt so sorry for her."

Blayney is making a steady recovery and will this week "learn how to walk again". She has been seeing a physio after breaking a metatarsal bone in a foot.

She will also begin dental work this week to place crowns and one implant on all of her back teeth.

Meanwhile, Lion staff have been offered counselling after the "disturbing" event on Friday, said external relations director Liz Read.