Bride Suffers Life-Altering Injuries After Falling from Second-Story Hotel Window on Her Wedding Night

A bride’s wedding celebration ended in catastrophe when she fell from a hotel window and suffered severe, life-altering injuries.

Testifying before Ireland’s High Court in a personal injury case against the Deebert House Hotel in Kilmallock, Jackie Sexton (née Tyrrell) recounted that she and her husband, Christopher Sexton, arrived back at the hotel from their wedding reception — held at another venue — at around 3:30 a.m. local time on Feb. 29, 2020, and went to room 217, according to The Irish Times, the Irish Examiner and CorkBeo.

Jackie, 37, told the court that “a lot of drink had been taken” over the course of her wedding day. She said her final memory of the night was sitting on the hotel room’s windowsill, her feet resting on a table, while she smoked a cigarette.

The next thing she remembered was waking up in Limerick University Hospital, where Christopher explained what had happened. She had fallen 25 feet from the second-floor window, sustaining fractured ribs, a collapsed lung and injuries to her back, leg, hip and pelvic bone.

In his opening address, Jackie’s senior counsel, Barney Quirke, told the court that Christopher came out of the bathroom and realized his wife was no longer in the room. The window was open, and although he couldn’t see her, he could hear “moaning or groaning” from the paved area below, which was wet and covered in snow at the time.

Quirke said the paved area where Jackie landed was in a restricted section of the property, which made it difficult and time-consuming to reach her. He argued that the incident and Jackie’s multiple serious injuries meant “the wedding weekend was destroyed.”

In her case against the hotel — which was settled on Friday, Dec. 5, according to the outlets — Jackie alleged negligence and breach of duty, claiming the hotel failed to take reasonable care to ensure her safety in the room.

Deebert House denied any liability for the fall and fully rejected the allegations, stating that the hotel’s windows had been fitted with restrictors in 2014 and that they were fully compliant with building standards.

Describing the impact on her life, Jackie — a mother of two now living in Croom, Ireland — told the court she had previously been very active. She enjoyed walking and swimming and had held a jockey license since her teenage years.

She had worked in both the hospitality sector and in medical device production prior to the accident, but said she can no longer perform those roles due to ongoing pain in her back and leg.

Jackie also spoke about her long and difficult recovery and rehabilitation, which included surgery, wearing a surgical collar and braces, relying on a wheelchair and crutches, and undergoing extensive physiotherapy.