A DECISION to stay the night in Sydney rather than drive back home to Ulladulla proved fatal for 21-year-old Eden Hull.
Just an hour after the young woman and her boyfriend Blake Tindall, 27, checked into the Rydges Hotel in Cronulla on Wednesday night, Ms Hall plunged to her death after falling from a 10th floor balcony.
Earlier in the day the couple had been to Cronulla Beach, followed by a birthday party for one of Ms Hull’s friends, and as the celebrations continued they decided to check into a nearby hotel rather than drive back to Ulladulla.
But less than an hour after their arrival at the hotel Ms Hull fell from the balcony attached to their 10th floor room, falling 25 metres before landing on a tiled terrace on the second floor about 11.30pm.
Hotel staff rushed to help Ms Hull, while a distraught Mr Tindall looked down from the balcony above.
He told police he had been in the bathroom, and walked back into the room to find Ms Hull missing.
A check over the balcony revealed the horrible tragedy.
Ms Hull suffered what police described as “horrific” injuries in the fall, and was rushed to St George Hospital.
She died early on Thursday morning while undergoing emergency surgery.
Struggling to deal with the weight of the loss, her father Robert Hull described Eden as “my little girl”.
“I can’t believe it,” he told the media in Sydney.
“She was just beautiful … I’ll miss her so much.”
Police are looking into suggestions Ms Hull and Mr Tindall were involved in a loud argument just before Ms Tindall’s fall, and also any possible influence of alcohol.
“One of the issues we will be looking at is the involvement of alcohol,” said Detective Superintendent Greg Antonjuk from Miranda Local Area Command.
“There are circumstances that indicate there was a disagreement between them, but there’s nothing stronger than that at this point in time.”
Superintendent Antonjuk said Mr Tindall’s account of the minutes leading up to Ms Hull’s fall were consistent with other information given to police.
However he said police would not rule anything out.