Teen Falls To His Death While Trying To Climb Onto Cruise Ship Balcony

Delivery of the 'Harmony of the Seas' liner to the STX Europe shipyard in Saint-Nazaire

A 16-year-old boy fell to his death on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship last week. Florida officials said that Laurent Mercer was trying to access his stateroom by climbing onto the balcony from an adjacent room because he forgot his room key. 

Mercer, who is from the Wallis and Futuna Islands in the South Pacific was on Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas with his family for vacation. The ship was docked at Labadee, Haiti when he attempted to climb into his eighth-floor room. During the climb, he lost his footing and fell to the pier below. 

"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 Broward Medical Examiner’s Office said in a statement

According to the South Florida Sun-Sentinal, witnesses described the shocking scene on social media. 

On a Facebook thread, a poster named Jaclyn Syroney wrote: “I was on the cruise and saw him hit the concrete dock. It was around 11:30 a.m. The workers were amazingly fast acting and tried to keep him alive, but I’m pretty sure he was dead on impact. There were also fast acting of removing his body and covering up the area so people wouldn’t see it. Royal Caribbean handled this situation with utmost respect for the passenger and the family.”

Royal Caribbean issued a brief statement saying that they "are saddened by the loss of one of our guests in a tragic accident."

Photo: Getty Images


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