A 27-year-old Italian man in a coma after an early morning fight in Altea

A 27-year-old Italian man is in an induced coma in an Alicante hospital after suffering a skull fracture in a fight that occurred at the weekend in Altea, where several Spaniards and Italians—approximately ten between the two groups—clashed after being ejected from a bar.

The Guardia Civil arrested a 24-year-old Spanish man as the alleged perpetrator of the attack, specifically a punch that caused the Italian man to collapse to the ground and suffer a severe blow to the head.

The arrested young man was brought before Benidorm’s Investigative Court No. 2 on Monday, July 28th, as the alleged perpetrator of a crime of bodily harm and was provisionally released with precautionary measures requiring him to appear in court, according to sources close to the case.

Dispute

The fight occurred around 1:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 27th, in the Plaza de la Iglesia in Altea. The men had a disagreement inside a bar, apparently over a trivial matter, and after being ejected from the establishment, they clashed on the terrace.

First, two young men—the injured man and the detained man—clashed, and then more people got involved, some of whom intervened to separate the situation and were also hit and defended themselves, according to the sources consulted.

In the scuffle, blows were exchanged, and chairs were even thrown. One of the young men punched the Italian man, who was with his brother and his girlfriend, all from Italy, and the punch knocked him out.

The impact with the ground caused a serious head injury, and he remained lying on the floor, bleeding, until emergency services arrived.

Medical services treated the young man, and given the severity of his injury—a head injury—he was transferred from Benidorm to a hospital in Alicante, where he received medical treatment and was put into an induced coma to assess the progress of the injury.

Officers from the Guardia Civil arrested the alleged perpetrator an hour after the fight. The man was brought before the courts and released on bail.

Videos of the fight recorded by witnesses have been shared on social media and presumably analysed by investigators.

The investigation was conducted by officers from the Judicial Police of the Guardia Civil in La Vila Joiosa, who took statements from numerous witnesses to clarify the circumstances of the fight between the two groups of young men.