Teen Falls to Death from Cruise Balcony After Attempting to Climb Into Room Because He Forgot Key
A 16-year-old boy fell to his death while attempting to climb into his room from the balcony of a Royal Caribbean cruise ship last Friday, according to multiple outlets.
The cruise line’s corporate communications manager, Owen Torres, confirmed the death in a statement to PEOPLE, saying, “We are saddened by the loss of one of our guests in a tragic accident.”
Torres did not offer any further information or identify the guest, who was named as Laurent Mercer by the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Mercer was on the eighth floor of Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas ship, the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed to PEOPLE in a statement, when he attempted to climb into his room from a nearby balcony because he forgot his room key.
The Sun-Sentinel reported that the ship was in the middle of a week-long Caribbean cruise, and was docked at Labadee, Haiti, at the time of Mercer’s death. The statement from the medical examiner’s office obtained by PEOPLE said that Mercer slipped and fell onto the pier.
“The ship’s medical team responded to the pier and attempted CPR, but the [boy] had sustained major head trauma and he was pronounced dead,” the medical examiner’s office said. The medical examiner’s office made the cause of death ruling after the ship returned to Florida on Sunday, and Mercer’s body was turned over.
Mercer, from the Wallis and Futuna Islands — a French island collectivity in the South Pacific — was on the seven-day cruise with his family, the Sun-Sentinel reported.
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“The ship’s medical team responded to the pier and attempted CPR, but the [boy] had sustained major head trauma and he was pronounced dead,” the statement said.
This accident is the latest in a series of tragedies for the Royal Caribbean cruise line, including an outbreak of norovirus that left over 277 passengers and crew members ill earlier this month, and a 20-year-old crew member who went overboard on Christmas Day.
