Sala Apolo nightclub says Australian died after going out emergency exit and jumping over wall
Rugby player Liam Hampson's friends had been searching for him for over 30 hours
Australian Redcliffe Dolphins rugby player Liam Hampson fell to death in Barcelona's Sala Apolo nightclub in the early hours of Tuesday morning after going through two emergency exits and jumping over a wall, Albert Guijarro, the club's director, explained in an interview with Rac1 radio station.
The player's over 30-hour disappearance was reported on social media by his friends, professional rugby players who were on vacation with him in the Catalan capital, generating much concern in Barcelona and abroad.
According to Guijarro, the fatal sequence of events was caught on security cameras and handed over to Mossos d'Esquadra police, who examined the evidence and ruled the death an accident.
Hampson, Guijarro says, can be seen on footage leaving the dance floor through an emergency exit. He then continues through a second emergency exit out onto a large terrace.
After urinating, rather than going down the stairs to the street when realizing the doors he has exited cannot be opened from the outside, he "very decidedly" jumps over a 1.5-meter wall "without looking." He then plunges 14 meters to his death into an inner patio with ventilation ducts.
When asked whether the club would revise its safety protocols, the Guijarro insisted the emergency exit route was "very clear, illuminated, and signed" and said it was standard practice for these kinds of doors to lock from the outside.
"He did what looked like, I don't know, an instinctive act and jumped in a place that was not even in the middle of the route," the nightclub director told Rac1. "When you watch it, why he chose to do that makes little sense," he said of the security camera footage.
He also said workers found him around 11 am, before his friends posted about his disappearance on social media, as they were alerted to the sound of a phone ringing in the inner patio. Guijarro explained that it was not a place cleaning staff went to as it only the site of ventilation ducts.
"We understand his family must be hurting," Guijarro said. "It has also caused great suffering to our team. It has been very painful for us."