More than 50 people have sought medical assistance at ER of the Ljubljana UKC hospital after falling from a cherry tree since the end of April, said Matej Cimerman, the head of the trauma department. Last year, there were 24, while usually 15 to 30 such cases are recorded annually.
"These are severe injuries with the average age of those injured, the cherry pickers, at more than 70 years. They have broken spines, femurs, and the clinic is practically full of cherry pickers," he said.
Asked to explain the surge in the number of such accidents, Cimperman said that the cherry season was obviously so good that the older people got the impression that a lot of fruit will go to waste if they did not help pick it.
This time of the year, the most frequent visitors to the ER are motorcyclists. "Last year we had about 80 motorcycling injuries. This year we've had 67 until Thursday. The cherry pickers are almost catching up with the motorcyclists."
Slovenians appear to be increasingly keen on cherry growing too. The number of cherry trees in intensive orchards has almost tripled in the last fifteen years, reaching almost 98,000 in 2017.
The annual produce is also rising. Last year, it stood at 1,200 tonnes, according to official statistics. This figure was exceeded only in 2015, when 1,444 tonnes of cherries were picked.
Slovenia last year exported 40 tonnes of cherries, mostly Croatia and Spain, but also to Italy, Sweden, Germany, Greece and Austria.
Nonetheless, as much as 500 tonnes of cherries sold in Slovenia throughout the year came from abroad, mainly from Italy, Spain and Austria.
