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By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 22, 2001
For 21-year-old Timothy Flocco, the difference between life and death may have been a matter of inches.
Last May 18, the Pennsylvania college student fell from the balcony of his hotel room in Cancun, Mexico, and slammed onto the pavement 80 feet below.
He would still be alive, his father believes, if the balcony railing had not been dangerously low.
"My son was 6 feet tall and the railing was at crotch level," Tom Flocco says. "You hit that with enough power from a slip or a trip, you lose your balance, you're falling over and you're dead."
The younger Flocco is among at least 49 foreigners who have been killed in falls from Mexican hotel balconies since 1978. His father suspects the actual toll is higher and is on a crusade to get the U.S. government and the travel industry to warn tourists about the hazards of low railings.
Balcony railings on U.S. buildings must be at least 42 inches high; those in Mexico are generally no more than 38 inches and some are lower than 2 feet.
Although people die from balcony falls in the United States, especially during spring break in Florida, the problem is caused less by low railings than by inebriated young people climbing onto the railings or trying to jump from balcony to balcony.
In Mexico, though, some of the victims have been sober. And when drinking is a factor, the low railings increase the chances of a deadly accident.
In 1988, an 18-year-old Arizona boy fell to his death after drinking excessively for three days. His parents sued the College Tours travel company, alleging it had booked him into a room with an "unsafe balcony railing."
As an apparent result of the lawsuit, settled out of court, College Tours put this warning on reservation forms: "Balcony railings in Mexico may be of less standard heights than in the United States. Be careful of low railings. A fall from any height can result in serious injury or even death."
However, College Tours is now out of business and most other companies never mention the hazard, Flocco says. He speculates that his son, vacationing with friends, fell asleep while sitting on the balcony at night and was disoriented enough when he awoke that he accidentally fell over the 38-inch railing.
Now, when he's not working as a music teacher in Media, Pa., Flocco searches the Internet and corresponds with a growing circle of people to document other Mexican balcony deaths. Since 1978, 49 Americans and Canadians have been killed and four others injured, his research shows.
Flocco has gotten most of his data from newspaper clippings and a Freedom of Information request that a Canadian woman filed with her government after her husband plunged 20 floors to his death in Puerto Vallarta.
However, Flocco says, he has been virtually stonewalled by the U.S. State Department, which acknowledges it has no comprehensive way to keep track of deaths from such specific causes.
"We do have an interest in how Americans are dying . . . but many Americans are dual nationals who don't seek embassy or consular help, so our numbers are going to be very inaccurate," says Karolina Walken, a spokeswoman.
At Flocco's request, the department did a manual count of reported deaths of Americans living in the Merida, Mexico, consular district, which includes Cancun. Of the 47 who died in 1999, two were killed in balcony falls, the count showed.
However, there were three other deaths from "bronchoaspiration," essentially drowning in one's own blood.
"It should be noted that my son's autopsy listed the cause of death as bronchoaspiration," Flocco says. "Therefore, the State Department figures for Cancun in 1999 should be considered suspect at best."
In its general travel advisory for Mexico, the State Department warns that Americans in Cancun "have died after falls from balconies."
However, it does not mention other Mexican resorts, nor does a separate advisory on Cancun say anything about the problem.
The minimum balcony height in the United States has long been 42 inches because the average man's waist is about that far from the ground, says Larry Litchfield, a Phoenix, Ariz., building official who has testified as an expert witness in lawsuits.
"If a guardrail is there to prevent someone from falling over, it's just common sense you'd make it at least as high as the waist," he says. "It's simple physics. Everybody has a center of gravity and if you contact a (low) railing like that and just sort of bump into it, you're going to go over. There's nothing to stop you."
In Mexico and other countries with less rigorous building codes, balconies might be lower so they don't spoil views or design, Litchfield says.
"A balcony if not done right becomes sort of an architectural mar on buildings. Probably some architects are looking for just a minimal sort of barrier -- if it's a pleasing environment versus a safe environment, they'll sometimes go with pleasing."
To Flocco, the issue is purely one of safety. He wants travel companies to use only foreign hotels that meet U.S. standards unless they fully disclose any non-compliance. Companies should be required to include accident and fatality information in promotional materials about Mexican resorts, he says.
Flocco also wants the State Department to keep detailed, easily accessible records on recurring safety problems like balcony falls. And he would like to see Congress hold hearings on the balcony issue, just as it did for Firestone tire deaths.
So far, though, Flocco's crusade has been largely a Quixotic one.
"We're totally dedicated to keeping the status quo in Mexico," he says. "The last thing the State Department wants is to have guy like me disrupt a major source of income in Mexico, which is tourism."
-- Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.