Planking Goes to Far

A 20-year-old man plunged to his death after "planking" on a seventh-story balcony in Brisbane, Australia, the Brisbane Times reported Sunday.

Police told the Times the man fell from a unit block on Main Street in Kangaroo Point shortly before 4:30 a.m. local time.

Paramedics could not revive the man despite working on him for 20 minutes, the Times said. He was pronounced dead a short time later.

Police said they could not say if the fatality was Australia's first planking death.

"It is what we've been fearing," Deputy Commissioner Ross Barnett told reporters, according to the Australia Associated Press.

"Planking," a growing craze in Australia and spreading elsewhere, involves somebody lying flat on one's stomach, stiff as a plank, in unexpected places.

Plankers have shown up on top of signs, train tracks, fire hydrants, clotheslines and motorcycles.
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