Claudia Chessa, an 18-year-old Sardinian woman who survived a four-storey fall from a hotel two weeks ago, has claimed that she jumped from the balcony as she feared that her boyfriend would kill her. 

Chessa, from Arzachena in Northern Sardinia, suffered grievous injuries but an awning cushioned the fall and saved her life.

She was on holiday with 27-year-old Alessio Lupo Rivera, with whom she argued shortly before the fall.

Lupo was arraigned before Magistrate Jean Paul Grech last week and pleaded guilty to causing slight bodily harm, causing his partner to fear violence and drug possession. He was fined €250 for drug possession and granted a conditional discharge for two years. He has since left Malta. 

In an interview, he denied pushing her but described their relationship as “toxic”.

Speaking on Italian TV station Pomeriggio Cinque Chessa recounted from her hospital bed what happened on the fateful night, insisting that had she not jumped, Rivera would have tried to kill her.

She said that their argument began in a night club, when Alessio was arguing with strangers. She saw him leave with a stranger, and then return. He went to the bathroom and she followed him.

“I followed him and saw him with a stranger taking drugs. I’m very disappointed because I wanted him to come here (Malta) for a change of scenery,” she said, adding that Riveria tried to deny he was taking drugs.

Once they arrived at their hotel room, she said the argument became physical.

“He tried to suffocate me with a cushion and bit my toes until they bled,” she claimed. 

“He pulled my hair, and I have some missing.”

She said she tried to escape from the balcony and held on to the balcony railings before letting go. 

Parts of the televised interview were published on Facebook, where an Italian journalist asked Chessa whether she decided to fall because she feared Riveria would kill her. 

“Yes. I was terrorised by his look, his words and his gestures, and he started punching me in the chest and face," she said.

"He told me I'll kill you, you won't leave this room alive. At that point I thought about my mother, my family, about never seeing them again, I was desperate, I was scared, I tried to calm him down. Throwing myself was the only solution."

She recalled how she fell on the awning and lost her breath for a few seconds. She noticed that Riveria did not look out from the balcony. She then called out to a group of people and asked them to call an ambulance, telling them that she was dying. 

“I was terrified that if he arrived, he would kill me,” she said.

She said he later showed up, as if nothing happened, and showed the group pictures of her. She said he was describing her as his crazy girlfriend who threw herself from the balcony.