Vangelis Kapatos felt his world was coming apart before a Manhattan suicide leap that he survived by landing on garbage piled up after the blizzard, relatives said Monday.

The 26-year-old had long battled depression and was struggling with a romantic breakup and his parents'
declining health when he suddenly faced eviction from his childhood home.

"He was in a weak spot. He kept on thinking about it, and it's not easy. He's a young person and he has no parents," said his aunt Katharina Capatos.

"He had a girlfriend. I said, 'How is this girl?' He said, 'We broke up and then she got married,'" she

said.

She said her nephew suffered a spinal cord injury in the nine-story fall and was in a medically induced coma at Bellevue Hospital.
He underwent surgery Sunday, and is expected to have another operation today,

she said."I believe he will be

paralyzed," the aunt said.

Kapatos' mother returned to Greece years ago to live in a home, and his father recently went into one after getting cancer, Capatos said.

The tipping point came when his W. 45th St. building converted to cooperative apartments, and a sponsor bought the
$572-a-month apartment where Kapatos grew up.

It is common practice for investors to buy occupied, rent-stabilized apartments at cut-rate prices and wait for the
tenants to leave or die.

When Kapatos' father moved out, the sponsor filed a suit to get the young man out. Although the case appeared weak,
Kapatos buckled under the pressure.

"He had lived there his whole life and under succession rights the apartment was his. But he was very worried he would lose," said
his lawyer, Charles Small. "There was no merit to the landlord's


case, which makes this very, very shocking."Kapatos was put Bellevue after a meltdown in court last month.