Former boxer sues for prison bunk bed injury

Helmuth L. (32), who had been a semi-professional boxer, told the Kronen Zeitung newspaper that he has to take 16 painkillers a day and use crutches after his cell mate's bunk collapsed and came crashing down on top of him.

“I was lying in my bunk and suddenly my cell mate – who weighed 110 kilos – and his bunk came crushing down on me,” he said.

The accident last October was followed by several hospital stays and ended what had been a promising boxing career. When he left prison and returned to Vienna he was initially in a wheelchair, but now gets around on crutches.

“I have to take 16 painkillers a day, and I had to quit my job working as a waiter in a Heurigen in Stammersdorf,” he said.

With the help of a lawyer he now plans to sue Austria for the pain he suffered and loss of earnings.

He told the Kronen Zeitung that he was only in prison after he got into a fight with a man in a street who was threatening to beat up a woman.