SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA: An Australian man dressed only in his underpants survived a fall from his ninth-storey apartment when an apparent incident of high jinks went badly wrong, police said Tuesday (October 16th).

The 35-year-old was attempting to build planks across to a neighbour's flat when he lost his footing and plummeted 30 metres (100 feet) to the ground, police said.

The man crashed through an iron and timber pergola which broke his fall.

"He was skylarking around, building planks across to his neighbour's place when it happened," police spokesperson Ros Weatherall said. "He was very lucky."

Residents at the apartment complex in the western Australian capital Perth said they heard a strange noise shortly after midnight.

One said he woke to find police tending to the scantily-clad man in the apartment's courtyard.

"He was conscious, he was going 'Well, well, where am I? What happened?' and that was about it," the resident told ABC radio.

"It was a horrendous fall because he actually came down nine storeys."

The man was taken to hospital where he is in a stable condition with cuts and a suspected broken leg.

West Australian police Inspector John Gibson said he had first thought the man would have been "a goner."

"But, yeah he survived and jolly good luck to him," he told ABC radio.

"One would hope that if he was skylarking, he's learnt a very big lesson from a very lucky fall."