They’re young, on holiday, drunk and sometimes high, and they decide to jump from their hotel or apartment balcony into the pool. But some miss and end up in hospital ... or worse, dead.
The so-called “balconing” craze has taken off to such an extent in Spain’s Balearic Islands that doctors at the Son Espases hospital in Palma de Majorca – a major trauma centre – decided to study the phenomenon.
“It’s endemic,” says Xavier Gonzalez, head of surgery at the hospital who participated in the study.
“It seems that ... it’s like an initiation rite for some tourists, whose parents already came here when they were young.”
The 2010-2015 study only covers patients who were treated in hospital and not those who died while “balconing” – a term that refers to people who throw themselves into pools or fall while trying to get to another balcony or simply leaning over.