American teacher dies after 'laughing too hard' and falling off balcony in Mexico

(FOX NEWS) - A Pennsylvania school teacher vacationing in Mexico died Monday when she fell off a roof-top balcony -- because she was laughing too hard.

Sharon Regoli Ciferno, 50, a teacher at Charles A. Huston Middle School in western Pennsylvania, was with her daughter at a friend's house in Mexico when she sat on a deck ledge that doubled as a bench, her brother told PennLive.

"She started laughing very hard and when she put her head back she lost her balance and fell back," her brother, David Regoli, told the website. "She suffered multiple injuries to her body and brain."

Alcohol was not a factor, he said. The building code standards in Mexico are not as stringent as in the U.S.