Tuesday, April 2, 2024

Man overboard: Cruise ship overboards and how they happen

falling off cruise ships

Keeping your cool in life-or-death situations is key, as panicking is "the biggest thing that will kill you in a survival situation," according to Bigney. "When people enter into a body of water they usually damage their lungs right away, because they gasp," Bigney explained. "We have such a panic instinct to get air, and when people do that they bring water into their lungs." When you choose to apply (and are approved) for a new credit card through our site, we may receive compensation from our partners, and this may impact how or where these products appear. While we don’t cover all available credit cards, our editorial team creates and maintains all of the analysis of these cards, and our content is not influenced nor subject to review by any credit card company, bank or partner prior to (or after) publication.

Why most cruise ships don't have tech to automatically detect people falling overboard - Business Insider

Why most cruise ships don't have tech to automatically detect people falling overboard.

Posted: Thu, 31 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Warwick Tollemache fell off a Royal Caribbean ship and wasn't found during a search

Witnesses said cruise crew members managed to find her and brought her safely back on board in a roughly 45-minute ordeal. His disappearance prompted the Cozumel, Mexico-bound vessel to retrace its path toward New Orleans and the US Coast Guard to launch a frantic search. “When it started getting back towards nighttime again, the water started getting colder, [and] at that time I thought, you know, how much longer am I going to have to be out here? As he was treading the choppy waters during his nearly 20-hour ordeal, Grimes recalled being approached by a huge creature he initially thought was a shark.

Coast Guard Suspends Search for Passenger Who Fell From Cruise Ship

If the ship is moving the person may be rapidly swept away and if the location isn't known a single person's head can be extremely difficult to see in the vast, rolling ocean. "Even a small buoyant device will help you — something you can use with your arms around or your neck over just to help relieve some of the stress if you're not a great swimmer or you're having a hard time staying afloat," survival expert Cat Bigney told The Insider. According to CLIA, cruise lines have maintained an exceptional safety record and cruising is one of the safest forms of travel. The cruise line at first told Barnett's sister, who was also on the ship, that there was no surveillance footage of her brother that night, Reid said. A passenger traveling on Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas vessel went overboard on October 29 after the ship departed Barcelona and was saved. The Coast Guard called off its search for Hill when he wasn't found after covering more than 1,347 square miles.

Cruises

The thrilling rescue of a 42-year-old woman who spent nearly an hour in the water after going overboard a Royal Caribbean cruise ship last week was the rare maritime recovery to have a happy ending. If the fall or jump is not observed and immediately reported (which is most frequently the case), there is considerably less chance of the rescue being successful, leaving cruise lines dependent on reviewing closed-circuit camera footage. There is no pre-set limit to how long the search will last, however; in general, as long as there is hope, the search will continue. Still, CruiseJunkie.com founder and Memorial University of Newfoundland professor Ross Klein cautions that the numbers shouldn't be dismissed, and may actually be higher since they aren't always reported by the cruise companies or media. He explains, "I suspect most passenger disappearances on ships frequenting U.S. ports are reported, but I don’t have the same confidence around disappearances in other parts of the world, and especially not with regard to the disappearance of crew members." A person who said they were aboard the vessel at the time posted on social media that they could see spotlights and rescue boats from their balcony during the nighttime search.

At least 10 people on cruise ships went overboard this year, and 2 miraculously survived

In a lawsuit against Royal Caribbean, in which a jury trial began on Dec. 10, Skokan’s parents alleged that in his last 12 hours onboard the ship (pdf), he was served six martinis, at least seven vodkas, two vodkas mixed with Red Bull, and one cognac. They also allege that Royal Caribbean had already been told by eyewitnesses that the fall was not intentional when it made the announcement, and that a crew member had seen Skokan extremely intoxicated just 20 minutes before his death. US maritime laws and vessel requirements are much more stringent than those of, say, Bermuda or Panama—it’s no coincidence that only one large passenger cruise ship, Norwegian’s Pride of America, is currently registered in the US. This is despite the fact that Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and Carnival all have their corporate headquarters in Miami, Florida, giving the impression that they are tried-and-true American brands. Presumably for tax purposes, these lines are incorporated in Liberia, Bermuda, and Panama respectively.

falling off cruise ships

For over 24 hours, Carnival crews searched the ship and the Coast Guard scoured a 200-mile section of the Gulf of Mexico looking for signs of Barnett. College student Sigmund Ropich of Texas was vacationing with his friends on Royal Caribbean's Wonder of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world in August, his sister Savannah Ropich told Business Insider. Apoorv Sahani later said in a post on X that his family was given footage from the cruise ship.

Compared to other passengers' tales, the 90 minutes she spent in the water was actually relatively short. Cruise Critic staff writer Joyce Gleeson-Adamidis has been on a countless number of cruises — both as a ship staff member and the wife of a Celebrity Cruise captain — and has seen it all. In one of her articles, she described the tale of a man overboard situation that didn't make the major media. In 1992, aboard the legendary Britanis, the captain noticed an 18-year-old passenger acting strangely and began talking to him. When it was clear the young man wasn't thinking straight, the captain grabbed him, but the passenger pulled away, ran out the door, and left over the railing.

falling off cruise ships

ABC News Live

The highest number of reported incidents happened in 2015, when a total of 27 passengers toppled over the barrier and into the ocean. With MOBs or serious crimes, of course law enforcement authorities are supposed to be alerted. Often, it’s the legal and justice system of a country most of the travelers have never set foot in. Questions of labor, environment, and safety are also determined by the flag state. Should an incident happen while a vessel is sitting in a port, jurisdiction would lie with the port state, and cruise lines often report incidents that occur on the high seas to law enforcement in their next port of call, as well as to their ship’s flag state. Indeed, though most cruise ships have video surveillance equipment installed, someone has to be monitoring those images at all times to know if a person has gone overboard—no easy feat on a mega-ship carrying thousands of people.

Passenger rescued after falling off 10th deck of cruise ship, Coast Guard says

The MSC Euribia can accommodate 6,327 passengers and has a wide range of bars and restaurants, five swimming pools, a wellness spa, a theater, a casino, and a very extensive children's club. "I'm devastated. I have so many questions, and I'm not getting any answers to what's happened," said Mcphee, 20. "I wanted to see my family and I was dead set on making it out of there. I was never accepting that this is it, this is going to be the end of my life. I'm 28 years old. I'm too young. This is not going to be it," Grimes said. The ship was on its way to Cozumel, a Mexican island in the Caribbean, and was released by the Coast Guard to continue to its destination after the rescue was made. "The next thing I know... I regained consciousness. I was in the water with no boat in sight," he said. Cruises are cool because, on most boats, you can buy a drink pass and booze all you want, head to a fancy dinner or pig out at a buffet, catch a Broadway-style show, watch a movie on the big screen, and go to the spa.

Cruise lines have regulations in place to prevent passengers from falling overboard. Ultimately, if you fall from a cruise ship many miles from shore, it's a waiting game to be rescued, and making a signal is one way to improve your chances of being found. Calories are needed to regulate core body temperatures, but she said most bodies would be able to do that for a couple of days with reserves, including from fat and the liver. A Carnival cruiser who fell off a ship over Thanksgiving 2022 made headlines when he was rescued after spending close to 20 hours in the Gulf of Mexico. In 2023, at least 10 people fell off a major cruise line ship, turning dream vacations into disaster situations — and only two survived the fall into the ocean.

A spokesperson for Carnival told Insider at the time that the "only way" to go overboard is to "purposefully climb up and over the safety barriers." James Michael Grimes recounted eating bamboo and fighting off jellyfish in the shark-infested waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He acknowledged having a few drinks the night he went overboard but said he wasn't drunk. Investigations into every overboard incident from the 10-year period beginning in 2009 found all of them to be "the result of an intentional or reckless act," the CLIA report said. The passenger, according to the Coast Guard, turned out to be James Grimes, 28, who had been traveling with his parents and siblings on the five-day cruise.

Because of the complexity, some of these mysteries remain unsolved, and some victim’s families say the cruise lines aren’t doing enough to find answers—or even that they jump to conclusions that fly in the face of evidence. Among the aggrieved is the family of Nathan Skokan, aged 22 at the time of his death. According to Carver, when police finally traced Merrian Carver’s whereabouts to the ship via a credit-card receipt, it took Royal Caribbean three days to confirm she had even been on the ship.

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