Sydney - An Australia power station worker told Thursday of surviving a 50-metre fall while cleaning the inside of a boiler.

Ronald Mackie, 47, got away with minor injuries when he landed in ash at the power plant near Melbourne.

The father-of-two blamed himself for an accident that saw him tumble the equivalent of 10 storeys.

"I hit the bottom, that was when I blacked out," he told reporters from his hospital bed. "Yeah, it was a fair drop, I was probably pretty lucky."

Mackie was doubly lucky because the ash he fell into was cold because the boiler had been out of action for three days.

A safety officer said he was lucky to be alive.

"He falls very much into the 'buy a lottery ticket,'" Michael Birt said. "Not many people have a fall of this type and get to walk away or live to tell the tale, especially not from
10 storeys." (dpa)