Venice A British schoolgirl who suffered serious injuries when she fell more than 30ft from a window at an Italian hotel had her life saved by a canopy, hotel staff said.

The girl, named in reports as 16-year-old Su Cangatin-Ripley, remains in hospital after the fall, which happened in the early hours during a week-long school choir trip to Venice.

Her parents were understood to be at her hospital bedside. Luca Fullin, who works at the Hotel Cristallo and is the son of the manager, said: “The girl had been sitting in the window smoking when she fell on to the canopy below. It was extremely lucky that the canopy was open, because in all likelihood it saved her life. At times there had been up to three girls sitting on the window ledge, and some of them had been moving from room to room.

“This is an old building and clearly the window ledges are not meant to support that kind of weight. The fire brigade have since removed the ledge to be sure that there was no risk of it falling on to anyone below.”

Mr Fullin said that the guests from Emanuel School in Battersea, southwest London, were due to leave this morning. A Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday: “We can confirm that a British national was injured and hospitalised in Venice.”

Times Recommends

• Twitter in trouble over Sarkozy affairs rumour
• North Koreans fear another devastating famine
• Want to be a genius? Practise, says geneticist