A friend of Quinlan's caught the incident on camera. "You can see my arms waving around," Quinlan said, "because I knew I was falling forward and not going to make the jump."
Quinlan said only a snap decision had saved him from breaking his neck, or worse. "It was really good that at the last second I thought, 'Crap, get my hands out, I've only one second to think'."
His hands connected with the container, cushioning the impact to his head before he fell to the ground.
Quinlan's friend, Max, had run down to help. Amazingly, Quinlan got away with just two chipped teeth and a gash on his chin.
"You broke two teeth, mate," Max said. "That's going to cost quite a few f***ing dollars to replace."
Quinlan said after about half an hour he started feeling pain in his wrist but that was the extent of his agony.
"I'm extremely lucky. Everybody keeps telling me it could have been way worse," he said.
The YouTube video of the June accident has gained worldwide attention in the last few days, going from obscurity to getting more than 100,000 views.
Quinlan has had several trips to the dentist and is getting a tooth implant next week. An incisor and adjacent tooth were chipped and cracked through to the root.
He needed three stitches in his chin that had "split open a bit" but was otherwise fine.
Quinlan started parkour training about seven years ago when the sport only had about 10 participants in Auckland. He said a few hundred now took part nationwide.
Quinlan had done parkour in Christchurch, the Gold Coast, Malysia, Paris and Barcelona. There were several professional parkour athletes in Europe, but none he knew of in New Zealand.
He added that parkour was good for building physical and mental strength and speed.
"Some of the things I imagined I could never do are actually very easy now."
