A University of Canterbury student has been hospitalised after attempting a stunt in order to join the Engineering Society of Canterbury (ENSOC) committee.

The 20-year old student lit his hair on fire and attempted to jump from a roof into a one meter deep paddling pool. He missed it narrowly and suffered a serious spinal fracture.

The student’s friends reported that he had not been drinking.

The necessity of the stunt as part of the ENSOC committee application process is somewhat unclear, but reports from the student’s flatmates suggest that entry to the committee can be gained through regular campaigning, but that entry via stunt was a lesser known, more radical, way in.

ENSOC reportedly do not accept stunts that are likely to endanger students, short term or long term.

They claim to have scrapped the stunt aspect of the application process following the accident.

The accident occurred on the same day as one of ENSOC’s biggest annual events, The roUNDIE 500.

The roUNDIE 500 is a carpooling pub crawl around the region and is the successor to the infamous Undie 500 which saw students drive from Canterbury to Dunedin, with multiple compulsory stops along the way.