Thousands hurt in US balcony collapses

MORE than 6,000 people have been injured from collapsing balconies and porches in the US since 2003, according to estimates.

However it is rare that such accidents lead to death – with just 29 killed including the six college students who died this this week in Berkeley in California.

The frequency of accidents is in part due to the structures’ special vulnerability to dry rot.

“It’s all about creating a safe structure that has endurance, that has a reasonable life expectancy,” said David Helfant, who identified potential flaws in design and construction after an unofficial inspection of the Berkeley balcony that collapsed.

“When I see something like that in a town I work and live in, it’s extremely depressing, it’s upsetting,” he said.

A Consumer Product Safety Commission analysis for The Associated Press estimated that 4,600 emergency room visits were associated with deck collapses in the past decade and another 1,900 with porch failures.

One of the worst collapses occurred in 2003, when a porch fell in Chicago and killed 13 people. The commission identified just ten fatalities since then – until Tuesday.

The Berkeley balcony snapped off the fifth floor of an apartment building, tossing 13 people to the street 50 feet below. Seven survivors are being treated in hospitals, while funerals are being planned for the six who died.

The students who died were Ashley Donohoe, 22, of Rohnert Park, California, and Olivia Burke, Eoghan Culligan, Niccolai Schuster, Lorcan Miller and Eimear Walsh, all 21-year-olds from Ireland.

Autopsy results showed their causes of death as multiple blunt injuries.