A LOCAL man has plunged to his death from the second storey of a hospital accommodation block.

Mr Darren Bowen (23) was believed to be visiting friends at the nurses' quarters of Manchester Royal Infirmary when the tragedy happened.

He fell around 30ft from a second floor ledge of the five-storey building and suffered serious head injuries.

Mr Bowen, of Roch Crescent, Whitefield, was found on a stretch of concrete outside the Sparshott House block. He was taken to the hospital's accident and emergency department, just a few minutes away, but pronounced dead on arrival.

Police are not treating the incident as suspicious.

A spokeswoman for the Manchester Royal Infirmary said she believed Mr Bowen was a friend of one of the nurses and was attempting to balance on the ledge when he fell.

She said: "We don't know anything for definite yet but it looks as if he was playing about on a ledge and fell."

"He must have landed on his head on the concrete. Even though the ledge wasn't that high off the ground he suffered fatal head injuries."

Mr Bowen's parents live in Alexander Avenue in Unsworth, Bury. They were too upset to talk about the death of their son, which happened early on Friday (April 28).