Revealed: The steps that brought down Dan

The steps where Premier Daniel Andrews says he nearly lost his life in a horror fall in Sorrento were two small wooden treadboards.

The Lincoln Ave home, which has since had a fresh coat of paint, fetches between $1000 and $1443 per night. Picture: Supplied

These are the steps where Premier Daniel Andrews says he fell last year, suffering serious spinal injuries, collapsed lungs and six fractured ribs.

The two small wooden steps lead to a porch 42cm above a lawn at a modest Sorrento beach house.

Mr Andrews, who missed more than three months’ work, has said that he slipped on steps outside a Sorrento property he and his family had spent a weekend away in, as he was leaving at 6.30am on Tuesday, March 9 last year to head to a press conference.

Neither the Premier nor his office have ever fully detailed what he was doing in the days before the incident or exactly where it happened.

Now the Sunday Herald Sun can reveal that the property where the Premier says he tripped is a three-bedroom weatherboard beach shack on Lincoln Ave in Sorrento.

Both steps down from the front porch of the home are less than 20cm apart, with a smaller gap to the lawn.

Speaking at a press conference on Sunday, Mr Andrews described the stair fall as a “terrible incident”.

“It was an accident. It was no one’s fault,” he said, declining to comment further.

Despite suffering gruesome injuries on what he described as “wet and slippery steps”, it can also be revealed the Premier never raised any issues regarding the safety of the Mornington Peninsula property with the rental agency and did not initiate any claim against its owners.

Daniel Andrews says he slipped on these steps at the Sorrento home where he was holidaying with family. Picture: Supplied

Mr Andrews and his family had booked the Sorrento house for seven nights across the Labor Day long weekend.

And while they never raised concerns in the aftermath of the fall about the steps, a member of the Premier’s staff did seek a part-refund because the getaway had to be cut short.

The refund bid was rejected but a three-night credit for a future stay at the same property was granted.

The Sunday Herald Sun has been told that a member of the Premier’s staff inquired a few months later about Mr Andrews and his family returning to the Lincoln Ave property, but sources close to the Premier yesterday said that was “not correct”.

“They asked about whether the discount could apply to another property and they were told ‘No, that is only attached to the Lincoln Avenue one’,” the source said.

“Why would you go back to the house where you had that memory?”

Known as “The Beach House”, the Lincoln Ave holiday home “offering a well zoned floor plan, sun-drenched orientation, swimming pool and spa, private gardens and the stands of native Ti Tree” fetches between $1000-$1443 per night.

Max Beck has refuted reports that he had played golf with the Premier on the weekend of the fall. Picture: Josh Robenstone

Several alternative theories about the fall have been put forward since the incident, mostly asserting that Mr Andrews was intoxicated and it happened at a function on the Monday afternoon or night.

None have been proven and the Premier has dismissed them all.

Different versions of events have also emerged regarding what Mr Andrews had been doing in the days leading up to the fall.

Some sources insisted that the Premier had played golf with Melbourne property magnate Max Beck on the Saturday afternoon at St Andrews Beach Golf Course.

A rich-lister who founded the Becton Property Group in 1976, Beck is described by government insiders as being a confidante of the Premier, one of a small circle of Melbourne businessmen who “have the ear” of Mr Andrews.

But Beck yesterday said that while he did play golf with Mr Andrews “a couple of times a year” he did not that weekend.

“On that particular weekend I didn’t play with him,” Beck said.

“I remember that weekend. I was quite shocked when he hurt himself and didn’t realise he was down there (at Sorrento).”

However, a source close to the Premier on Saturday said that “he (Mr Andrews) thought that Max may have been there, but he’s not certain”.

Beck’s cliff-top mansion at Sorrento is located a short drive from the Lincoln Avenue rental home.

Daniel Andrews was off work for months and had to wear a back brace. Picture: Twitter

The Premier has said the accident happened when he was “down the beach having a family weekend”.

“It was a bit of a chance to have some time together and make up for the fact that summer had been really busy,” Mr Andrews said at the time.

But sources close to the rental who have spoken to the Sunday Herald Sun are convinced that Mr Andrews fell the night before he said he had slipped, while at a gathering.

“It was a drinks gathering,’’ one source said.

It can also be revealed no alterations or safety improvements were made to the Lincoln Ave property after the Premier’s fall, while the home’s owners were advised that they did not have anything to worry about legally.

The steps and decks had been scrubbed clean with high-pressure hoses the previous week.

A source questioned how anyone could become “airborne”, saying: “It is very low to the ground. There are only two steps.”

Daniel Andrews’ wife Cath said she thought the Premier was ‘going to die’ after the fall. Picture: Alex Coppel

Speaking of the incident, Mr Andrews said: “I’ve got a briefcase in one hand, I’ve got an overnight bag in the other and I walked out the front door.

“The door slams behind me, I take two steps on the porch … and as I put my left foot on the step it just slid straight off it. It’s like it is in slow motion. I thought ‘I am in trouble here’.

“I got airborne, bang, and then the leading edge of the porch hit me square across my shoulder blades. I could hear it, and it was not a pleasant sound.

“I couldn’t breathe in or out. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t call out for Cath.”

The Premier also said it was still dark as he lay flat on his back in the grass at the foot of the steps when his wife Catherine heard him groaning about five minutes after the fall.

“It was awful because you were going blue and I thought you’re going to die here in Sorrento in this holiday house. And you were looking at me and you felt the same,” she said.

Ambulance Victoria had said in a statement in June last year that “based on information provided during (Ms Andrews’ Triple 0 call) the case did not require an immediate lights and sirens (life-threatening emergency response) and the call underwent secondary triage”.

Ms Andrews says she then called the Premier’s security detail.

The Premier said two police officers lifted him off the grass and took him inside the Sorrento house.

The two police officers were preparing to escort him via his Mulgrave house to Healesville, where he was due to announce an Indigenous truth and justice commission, he said.

When paramedics arrived at 7.01am, Mr Andrews said he was in agony and still struggling to breathe.

Unable to move his arms, he said the paramedics used scissors to cut off his favourite golf shirt so they could see his broken body.

Moments later a tube was inserted into his arm so he could receive morphine to deaden the pain, allowing him to suck in more oxygen.

Mr Andrews said he did not see anyone the night before he injured his back and described the getaway to the Mornington Peninsula as a “family weekend”.

“I’d not seen anyone, it had not been a late night, in the sense that I think you are inferring. It was just one of those things. You can be incredibly unlucky,” he said.

The Premier was barely sighted throughout his 100-plus-day absence from the state’s top job, apart from a few social media posts, including one from wife Catherine trimming his hair from the comfort of their Mulgrave home.