BMX champ fighting for life after balcony jump

BMX rider Dane Searls tried to jump into the pool from a first-floor balcony, hitting concrete head first. Photo / Getty Images

The man critically injured in a fall from a Surfers Paradise balcony is a professional BMX rider who was trying to jump into a pool to celebrate a successful stunt.

Twenty-three-year-old BMX rider Dane Searls was on a first-floor balcony celebrating a dirt bike record when he tried to jump into the pool on Sunday night, but missed and hit concrete head first.

"He's in a situation now fighting for his life and it's just so tragic," friend Paul Everest told the Ten Network on Monday.

Searls is being treated for critical back and head injuries and his parents are maintaining a bedside vigil at the Gold Coast hospital beside their son.

"His mum said that as a kid he was one of those kids who didn't sit on the sidelines, he was in it, lived life to the fullest," Mr Everest said.

Mr Everest told Fairfax Searls had broken a world record on Friday on jumps that had been specially built for him.

He had performed a series of four jumps, a nine-metre gap, followed by a 12-metre gap, then a 15-metre and finally an 18-metre gap, all from a height of two to three storeys.

Police say Mr Searls jumped on Sunday from at a building on the corner of Hanlan Street and The Esplanade just after 6.30pm (AEST).

The building is in central Surfers Paradise, near the Orchid Avenue nightclub strip, and in the heart of the annual Schoolies celebrations which kicked off on Friday night.

On Saturday a man in his 30s died after plunging from another high rise complex in Surfers Paradise Boulevard.

Police said that man's death was not being treated as suspicious.

- AAP