A woman who seriously injured by a sofa that fell from a roof says that she suffers pain every day and is unable to work after having a metal plate fitted in her spine.

31-year-old Edita Butkeviciute was crushed by the sofa in December 2019 while leaving the nail salon where she worked to make a phone call on her lunch break.

Butkeviciute told BBC “everything is broken inside me” after the incident.

“I remember just waking up, I screamed really loud for help and started feeling cold. I couldn’t move. I am very glad I am alive. I am very lucky to be alive,” she said.

Barrie Law, 27, and Lee Morrison, 33, were moving the piece of furniture before it hit Butkeviciute when they dropped it from the roof. The pair admitted culpable and reckless conduct at Aberdeen Sheriff Court on Tuesday (20 April) in their absence.

Butkeviciute was under the sofa for 40 minutes before someone heard her screaming and ran to help her.

“I heard a wee lass screaming so called 999. I had to tell them three times that a sofa had fallen on top of her because they found it so hard to believe,” the man who helped her said.

“People were bringing her blankets and we moved the bins from the rear yard so the ambulance could get in easily,” he added.

The indictment states that at Nailco Nail Bar on Union Street, Law and Morrison dropped a sofa from the rooftop, causing it to strike Ms. Butkeviciute to her severe injury, permanent disfigurement and impairment.

“It’s been more than a year since my injuries and I still have metal plates in my spine,” Butkeviciute said.

“I’m in pain every day, cannot sit straight for longer than 40 minutes and I’m not able to go back to work,” she continued.

“I am glad these two men admitted what happened so other people can learn an important lesson because you can’t go about throwing things from windows – people can get seriously hurt and what happened to me proves that.”

“I’ve been helped a lot by my sister-in-law and my best friend and I am grateful for their support but I would now like my privacy respected so I can focus on my physical recovery.”