OCEAN CITY -- Ocean City Police this week are investigating a fatal fall from a Boardwalk hotel balcony late Thursday afternoon.

Around 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Ocean City Police and Paramedics responded to the Holiday Inn on the Boardwalk at 17th Street for a report of an individual that had fallen onto the pool deck below on the ocean side of the facility. Emergency personnel arrived at the scene and located an unresponsive individual who appeared to have fallen from a hotel balcony.

A source at the scene said the individual had fallen from a balcony on the 14th floor of the hotel to the pool deck below. The victim, later identified as Eric Austin Allen, 26, of Dayton, Md., was transported to Atlantic General Hospital where he was pronounced deceased.

For at least two hours, Ocean City Police, Fire Department and Emergency Services crews remained on the scene with several emergency vehicles on the Boardwalk. Yellow caution tape stretched around the railings of the hotel’s pool deck and hotel staff cleared the scene as hotel guests looked on from balconies above.

Allen’s remains were taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Maryland in Baltimore for an autopsy, which was undertaken on Thursday morning. Ocean City Police detectives are continuing to investigate the manner and cause of death in the case,