Imelda plunged from an 11th floor Bondi balcony and survived. Now she tells how she has found hope after her life was rocked by a series of devastating family tragedies

EXCLUSIVE

A Sydney beautician who jumped from an 11th floor flat has broken her silence about her traumatic ordeal and revealed how her tortured past led to the terrifying fall.

Irish national Imelda O’Brien, 30, owner of an eyelash salon in Bondi Junction, was taken to hospital with a broken back, ribs and leg after the 2am fall last January.

But she has now revealed how she lay paralyzed and unconscious in the dark for half an hour after landing on a fifth-floor deck but managed to raise the alarm.

In an interview on The Bear, Ireland’s biggest podcast, Ms O’Brien denied speculation that she had been drinking heavily beforehand and insisted she was now sober.

She also revealed details of her tragedy-stricken family, where her teenage sister died when she fell from a cruise ship, followed by the death of her heartbroken father.

“When I fell, I blacked out on the way and about half an hour later, I think, I woke up,” she said.

‘I was paralyzed then. I remember arriving at the hospital and thinking, ‘Can I walk?’

She continued: ‘I ended up on someone else’s balcony and obviously had to shout for help.

“And a woman came out of the balcony and she called the police, and then she called the ambulance.

“I broke my lower back, I broke my leg, there’s a big, huge scar there. And then I tore the ligaments, tore the tendons and broke my ribs.”

Mrs O’Brien’s tragedy-stricken life began with the death of her sister 18 years ago, which in turn led to the suicide of their heartbroken father Paul seven years later.

‘We went on holiday to America in 2005. We went with four different families. And then we went to the Caribbean on a cruise ship,” she explained.

‘It was about three days after the holidays when my sister fell overboard from a balcony.’

Mrs. O’Brien was twelve at the time and her older sister Lynsey was fifteen.

“There was a bartender who served my parents, and he wasn’t on duty. And then he asked my sister if she wanted to come to the nightclub,” she said.

‘In America it’s over 21. So he took two to the nightclub, the other family’s daughter, Carla. And she was 17, and Lynsey was 15.

“And then he served my sister about sixteen cocktails.”

She revealed that her father had not noticed his daughter was missing until the bartender brought her back, barely conscious after all the cocktails she had consumed.

“He was just furious because she was drinking,” Ms O’Brien said. ‘She couldn’t even stand. So then we went to the room and my dad put her to bed.”

Moments later, Mrs. O’Brien saw her sister on the balcony of their room.

“I noticed she was swaying too much,” she said. “So then I had to run out and grab her, but I couldn’t pull her back because obviously I was in 12 and she was 15.

“And then I had to let her go.”

It took the cruise ship two and a half hours to turn around and start the search and rescue operation.

Lynsey’s body was never found and Ms O’Brien says the bartender disembarked in Mexico and was never questioned or charged.

Death devastated her family and tortured her father.

Mr O’Brien launched a campaign on cruise ship safety standards in the wake of the tragedy and self-published a book on the subject, ‘Lynsey’s Law: Coffin Cruise Ships and Obama’.

He never really recovered from her death and endured a “living nightmare” until he took his own life in 2013, after a horrific series of previous attempts, witnessed by Mrs O’Brien.

“When you’re younger, you block out a lot of things as a kid,” Ms. O’Brien added. ‘People don’t realize that trauma comes to light later in life.

‘I had four overdoses when I was 16, 17, 18 and 20.

‘For years I walked away from social workers if I didn’t like them, and then I moved to Australia.’

Ms O’Brien moved Down Under in 2019, desperate for a fresh start and initially found happiness through her thriving business and healthy lifestyle.

But she admits she was still haunted by her past.

“I hit rock bottom and ended up throwing myself off an 11-story balcony,” she said.

O’Brien spent five months in hospital after the accident and, having almost fully recovered from her injuries, returned to Ireland in June.

“I was in the hospital,” she admitted. ‘First I was upstairs and then I was placed in a psychiatric institution.

‘I just wasn’t happy, you know when you’re just not happy in a place.

‘I should have gone home earlier, but then I felt like home wasn’t the right place either. But now that I’m back, I feel like it is.”

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