It was a warm night in late September in France. We had been invited to a house party of some of the French Students. We arrived in good spirits and a bag full of booze, all that was needed for a good night. As we entered we saw the kitchen to the left. We went in and saw the fridge by the low window, so we put our beers in, taking one each, and headed into the living room.

It was a good night. I chatted to many new people, and we were all having a good laugh. I was chatting to this French guy by the front door, I forget his name or what it was about, maybe about my grandfather in the war - he was French -when, suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door.

"What the...?" I began before my question was quickly answered.

"Police! Open the door" shouted the police, in French, obviously.

Christ, I thought, it's a drugs raid.

But it wasn't. Remember that low window? A girl had been sitting on the ledge chatting away when someone had bumped into her to get to the fridge. She fell backwards, onto the sloping roof beneath, which she rolled down before dropping down the gap between two buildings. She was trapped and with a broken hip.

The police and the fire brigade couldn't access her from above as it was too narrow to get a strectcher down flat. So they had to go in through the wall in the flat below - I don't know what happened to the people that lived in that flat - to get her out.

I looked out of a window on the street side while all this was going on and I saw fire engines, ambulances, and police car stretching all the way down the street, it was a sight to behold.

Of course, the emergency services had closed off the kitchen as they needed it to work and since that is where the booze was kept, many people started to leave. I had a couple of beers that couldn't fit in the fridge so I was tied over for a little bit.

Eventually, the girl was rescued and taken to hospital and those of us who remain carried on drinking until we decided it was bed time sometime in the early morning.

I decided I could give my friend a lift on the back of my newly bought bike so she sat on it and off we went. Sadly, I had not properly checked the bike to make sure everything was properly tightened and the derailler came loose and smashed into the back wheel, ripping out several spokes.