A flat roof above a bank with a 20-ft drop beneath is hardly the place for a youthful game of touch rugby but, as a 16-year-old, that's where Brian Crowley, now a member of the European Parliament, found himself along with some friends in April 1980.
The game took place in his native Bandon, a lively west Cork town. He tripped and went over the side. As he fell, he saw the ground coming up to meet him and remembers vividly that his only wish was to be alive at the end of the incident.
He lived to tell the tale but at a considerable cost. He broke his back and was paralysed from the hips down. Since then, he has been confined to a wheelchair.
That would have been enough to put most people into a serious decline, but not Brian Crowley. As a handsome, flaxen-haired youngster, he stood at 6ft 5in. He had come from a political family, his late father, Flor, being a friend and supporter of Charles J. Haughey. The politics game was in his blood and the accident did nothing to diminish that drive. He was taken to the Cork Regional Hospital, as it was then called, because as well as his other injuries, he had a suspected fractured skull. "I don't mind discussing this at all - I'm not the least bit sensitive about it, so you may ask me anything." After the initial diagnosis, he was sent for rehabilitation to a hospital in Dun Laoghaire, where he spent eight months. From the very first day of the accident, he says, he accepted that he would never walk again. He did not appreciate at the time the consequences of the accident in the longer term.
"I suppose you could say that it took me two years to come to grips with the full impact of what had happened," he said.
Brian Crowley is now 35. In a whirlwind campaign which belied his disability, he took Munster by storm in 1994 and topped the poll in the European constituency with 84,463 votes. People knew he came from a Fianna Fail family and that if he was anything like his father, his would be a dogged run for the seat in Europe. No one suspected, though, just how dogged it might be.
His formula was to enlist a team of friends as well as more experienced back-room people. It was a devastating combination. Before it kicked off, no one knew what its real potential was. Now they do, because at Cork's Neptune Stadium the weekend before last, Crowley did it again. He outflanked all the seniors in the field to romp home a poll-topper - this time with no fewer than 154,195 first preferences.
When he put himself into the fray the last time, he was up against people like Gerry Collins, Paddy Lane, John Cushnahan, Des O'Malley, Jim Kemmy and Pat Cox. No slouches there, but the newcomer brought his own charisma to the hustings.
On the Friday before the most recent count, he told Southern Report but swore the column to silence, that his team in the field was putting him well above 100,000 votes. His eventual vote was so massive that in the end, the papers dominated the huge Neptune Stadium, dwarfing the piles of papers for all the other candidates. One counter - an old hand at this game - said: "These votes shouldn't be counted, they should be weighed."
If you are an MEP living in Bandon, it's a little bit different from living, say, in Swords, close to Dublin Airport. Sometimes Crowley has to be up at 5 a.m., sometimes he doesn't have to leave home until 7 a.m. At least twice a week, he has to catch flights to Brussels or Strasbourg. He has the fold-up wheelchair down to a fine art. He drives everywhere himself and in a few deft moves - he neither seeks nor welcomes help - the chair is assembled and he is off. He can move and manoeuvre as adroitly as most able-bodied people.
Naturally effervescent, he has not allowed his disability to stem the enthusiasm he has for life and politics. Of course there are special difficulties, which he casts aside. The airport authorities know him now, in Ireland as well as in the European destinations to which he regularly travels. A special wheelchair has to be provided to get him on board an aircraft and wheel him to his seat while his own one is being loaded. This means he has to be brought up on a catering truck from ground level.
"There never really was any problem once check-in was made aware of the disability. It works perfectly well now and it's the same on the other side because they are used to me too," he said.
"I love the cut and thrust of European politics. Issues in Europe relate directly to what's happening at home and I feel there is a contribution to be made. When I started out and people saw me in a wheelchair, there was a bit of wonderment, even embarrassment.
"People didn't know what to make of me, but the committee structure is where it all happens in Europe. When they saw that my disability was no disability in terms of fighting a cause, I gained a new respect. I'm on equal terms now with all my colleagues.
"The thing is my mind hasn't changed at all. Intellectually I'm the same person and I've overcome the physical problems."