Authorities at Spanish holiday resorts are warning of a fresh wave of deaths from a dangerous game played by drunken tourists that involves trying to jump off balconies into hotel swimming pools.
The game of “balconing” has been made popular by YouTube and social networks, with daredevil jumps into swimming pools or from balcony to balcony being filmed with the videos published on the internet.
The game also includes other dares, according to authorities, with some people falling after trying to clamber from one balcony to another or playing other drunken games without taking into account the danger of falling. With three deaths and several serious injuries from balcony falls in hotels in the Balearic islands alone this summer, hoteliers and authorities worry that young tourists have still not woken up to just how dangerous the game is.
They say the number of falls already exceeds the seasonal average, despite measures taken by some hotels to make it harder to clamber over balcony railings.
Two British tourists are among the victims, with a 25-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man dying in falls at hotels in Ibiza’s San Antonio resort earlier this summer, according to local press reports.
{{/usCountry}}Two British tourists are among the victims, with a 25-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man dying in falls at hotels in Ibiza’s San Antonio resort earlier this summer, according to local press reports.
{{/usCountry}}A 20-year-old Italian woman died this month after falling from a fourth-floor balcony in Palma, Majorca.
There have been more than a dozen injured. Last Friday a 20-year-old British man was one of two people seriously injured in separate balcony falls on the same night.