Jan. 4, 2008 — What started out as a glorious morning — family members primping for a professional photographer's shots of their Virgin Islands vacation — turned into pandemonium when a deck collapsed, dropping 14 people as much as 10 feet onto the ground below.
Fourteen people were transported to Roy Lester Schneider Hospital with various injuries, but luckily, none of them serious enough to require overnight hospitalization.
It happened Thursday morning shortly after 10 a.m. at a villa rental in Estate Peterborg, as members of an extended family from Alabama and Florida gathered on a deck leading from the villa to the beach.
"We had a photographer and we were taking photographs for posterity sake," said Mike Escue, a vacationer here from Alabama with his family and that of his sister – all from Alabama — and with his mother from Florida.
"We were on a deck which was about halfway between the house and the ocean, taking a group picture, and the deck below us, a wooden deck, just collapsed, sending everyone down onto the rocks and cactus below. One end of the deck was about 2 feet high and the other end about 10 feet," Escue said.
Family members ranging in age from 10 to 69 were involved in the collapse and immediately began their own triage.
"It was very scary. A lady up at the house who was with us but is not a family member, called 911, and the ambulance and paramedics got here fairly quickly — probably 15 minutes," Escue said.
The cause of the accident appears to be corrosion, according to police spokeswoman Monyka Johnigan. "Preliminary investigation…suggests that because the balcony is in direct contact with corrosive air, sea blasts could have corroded the nails and deck making it weak," she stated.
Johnigan declined to release the address of the villa, and Escue didn't know the address, or who owns it, except to say it's located in Peterborg near Magens Bay. Asked whether he intends to sue, he paused and said, "Um…I don't think I would answer that. I'm just happy to say everyone is home from the hospital right now."
Escue praised hospital personnel as well as emergency responders, and said for many family members this was their first experience of the Virgin Islands.
Asked whether they intend to come back, he was enthusiastic. "Oh sure!" he said. "It’s a lovely place."
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