Falling man breaks fan's neck at Yankee Stadium

NEW YORK -- A tourist who suffered a broken neck at Yankee Stadium after another fan fell on him is recovering from his injuries.

Paul Robinson of Kirkland, Washington, was sitting in the stadium's steep upper deck with his wife and 13-year-old son last Sunday when an unidentified man standing behind him took a violent tumble down several rows of seats.

The man crashed into Robinson's head, breaking his vertebrae, before coming to rest in the next row.

Doctors at New York's Montefiore Medical Center say the surgery was a success but that the injury could have been far worse. Robinson told a hospital news conference Saturday that he could have been killed if the break had occurred a fraction of an inch the other way or the man had weighed 20 pounds more.

The man who fell was dragged away by his friends and never bothered to apologize or check how badly Robinson was hurt. The family thinks he was drunk.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)