The New Zealand Herald said the teen-ager fell about 50 meters off the balcony, dropping through a carpark roof that may have broken his fall before he hit the concrete. Another tenant raised the alarm after seeing the boy fall past his window.

The newspaper said medical experts were amazed that the boy survived as few people managed to live if they plunged from more than five storeys.

The teen-ager was described as in a stable condition in an Auckland hospital with a broken wrist, broken rib, gashed leg and internal injuries, the New Zealand Herald reported.

"God must have been with him. He's got an angel looking after him, that's for sure," housekeeper Kaa Wehi, who was working in the building at the time, told the newspaper.