Eighteen people were taken to Dunedin Hospital's emergency department after the incident about 7.45pm on Friday at a block of flats at 598 Castle St, where police estimate 1500 people were watching popular Kiwi band Six60 perform.
A 19-year-old student from Southland, who is a member of the Otago University women's rugby team, suffered spinal injuries in the collapse and remains in Christchurch hospital in a serious but stable condition.
The student's grandmother told the Herald on Sunday her granddaughter's surgery had gone well ‘‘but the outlook is not great''.
‘‘She has broken her back in three places. It's pretty horrible. I'm sure she will pull through but she's got a long road ahead.''
A man remained in a stable condition in Dunedin Hospital's high dependency unit, while the remaining 16 people had been discharged.
University of Otago women's rugby coach Terry Kerr, who was being kept updated by a senior player, told the Otago Daily Times yesterday it remained a ‘‘wait and see'' as to how much movement the injured woman would recover and whether she would be able to walk again.
She was a ‘‘lovely young woman'' and a ‘‘great team member'', Mr Kerr said.
She was one of four women from the team injured when the balcony fell on them. One was concussed, another had broken bones and one had a ‘‘banged-up'' ankle.
One of those injured was an international student from Canada.
Team physiotherapist Helen Littleworth, a former coach of the team and New Zealand Black Ferns captain, had offered her support and would help the injured players with any rehabilitation they might need.
‘‘I'll be able to step in once some of them get out of casts and need their rehab,'' Ms Littleworth said.
A senior member of the team, who was at the concert but did not want to be named, said team members were visiting each other to make sure everyone was ‘‘OK''.
‘‘We are just banding together, as you do in a situation like this.''
The balcony brushed her shoulder as it came down leaving her largely unscathed and she knew the situation was serious immediately.
‘‘I knew straight away when the [19-year-old] girl couldn't get off the ground,'' Ms Littleworth said.
She praised the actions of concertgoers, who quickly lifted the balcony and did not get in the way of emergency services.
She did not believe anyone should be prosecuted for what happened as it was a ‘‘freak accident''.
Lauren Tye, a 20-year-old nutrition student, said members of the rugby team were on a night out.
Four were directly below the balcony - which had up to 30 partygoers jumping on it - when it collapsed.
‘‘I heard a crack from above me but I was lucky because I stepped back as it fell.
‘‘It was scarier to sit there helpless and watch the other girls just lying there. Some of the rugby girls were hysterical.
‘‘Seeing the state they were in was just horrible,'' Ms Tye said.
Two other students, Lily Adsett and Jamie Constable (both 19), live in Castle St near the flat complex and were also at the gig.
Ms Adsett was close to the balcony when it collapsed and said she saw everything.
‘‘It was pretty slow-mo. People were just jumping up and down on the balcony, and then the next minute everyone was carrying [the balcony] out, pretty much, because it landed on heaps of people underneath.''
The whole incident was scary, she said.
Ms Constable said she was up at the front when the balcony collapsed and was not aware of what had happened until later on.
A member of the band asked if everyone was all right, Ms Constable said, but she assumed they were talking about a scuffle at the front of the crowd.
‘‘I thought it was just because the crowd was getting real into it. And he said, ‘I'm not going to continue until I know that everyone's OK', and because there was a fight up the front and there was a huge brawl, we just thought it was that. [So we said] ‘Yeah, everyone's fine! It's all good up here, keep playing'.''
Additional reporting by Herald on Sunday.
