Balcony Fall Survivor AJ's Life-Changing Accident

A broken spine didn’t hold her back from her dreams

- Cloe Willetts

Three years ago, Aucklander Aiga Pouoa had a sporting schedule packed to the brim. When she wasn’t driving forklifts at work, the exercise junkie was training for rugby games and going to the gym up to three times a day.

Spare moments were spent preparing for an upcoming boxing fight and a personal training course she was set to start – Aiga, known as AJ, was the epitome of active. But in July 2016, during a night out at a friend’s apartment, a tragic accident left the 38-year-old paralyzed.

“I fell seven meters from the balcony,” says AJ, a finalist for the Entrepreneur Award at this year’s Attitude Awards. “Everyone’s hearts stopped and they were freaking out because all they heard was a thud. I don’t remember why I leaned over the rail. The next time I woke up I was in the ICU.”

Before AJ’s life changed forever, she was working in a warehouse and captaining Pt Chevalier’s women’s rugby league team. “My job was going really well and I was getting pay raises and bonuses,” she recalls. “Before and after work I’d go to the gym and then do rugby training, and when nationals were coming up, I trained for that too.”

Dramatic turn

On a rainy day in July 2016, AJ was supposed to fly to Christchurch for her niece’s 21st birthday. But she couldn’t get out of work and had a rugby league social she’d set up. After some team bonding, she went to a friend’s place to wind down over a few quiet drinks. Sometime later she fell from the third-level balcony and onto a construction site.