By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Family members of a man who fell nine stories and landed on a pile of uncollected garbage say he was not paralyzed as a result of Sunday's suicide attempt.
Vangelis Kapatos's life was saved by a pile of trash on Jan. 2 when the 26-year-old landed on the garbage instead of the sidewalk after jumping out of his apartment window in a suicide attempt.
The man's aunt, Katharina Capatos, told the New York Daily News Wednesday that, despite suffering a spinal cord injury, Kapatos was not paralyzed from the nine-story fall on Sunday.
"His mouth is full of tubes. He couldn't speak," Capatos told the News. "I told him, 'Don't get upset. You will heal fast.' I know from his eyes he understood."
Kapatos's father lives in a nursing home and the young man was reportedly upset over being evicted from his rent-stabilized apartment, the News reported.
