How to Survive Falling From Cruise Ship in Open Ocean: Survival Expert

Table Of Content

• How easy is it to fall overboard on a cruise ship?
• Carnival cruise passenger who went overboard was 'dead set' on surviving
• Kenneth Schwalbe fell off a Princess cruise ship and couldn't be found
• Do people die when they go overboard?
• Holland America crewmember missing after going overboard before vessel docks at Port Everglades
• Passenger rescued after falling off 10th deck of cruise ship, Coast Guard says

The cruise ship company said in a statement to Sky News that the captain "immediately initiated all necessary rescue measures in close coordination with the local authorities." The Alabama man who fell off a Carnival cruise ship and miraculously survived nearly 20 hours treading water says he fought off what he feared was a shark and was forced to eat floating bamboo as he desperately clung to hope he would be rescued. Some might consider cruise ships havens, where passengers can destress freely and there's always something on tap. When an overboard situation is reported, the US Coast Guard uses a program to estimate where a floating object might be, Gross told Insider.

How easy is it to fall overboard on a cruise ship?

This has prevented cruise lines from, say, being liable for the deaths of non-earning children who drown in their pools. Using radars and infrared cameras, the company says its system has been shown two false positives per week on average (which it notes is low compared to other systems) and has been tested extensively in all maritime conditions. Klein has testified in front of the US Congress four times, and been an expert witness or contributed expert opinions in several court cases, including Broberg’s. Even CLIA, in its 2018 operational incident report—which is assembled by the cruise and maritime management firm GP Wild and tracks “significant cruise industry casualties identified from the public domain”—cites Klein’s data as a source. For the period of 2009 to 2017, that report found 164 MOBs, an average of 18 incidents per year (or, put another way, one to two per month, assuming equal distribution). This figure is not directly comparable to—though also not wildly different from—Klein’s, due to a differing time window, and the fact that GP Wild does not include ferries, nor uncorroborated reports that result from direct tips to Klein.

Carnival cruise passenger who went overboard was 'dead set' on surviving

The social work student from Scotland was last seen on board by his sister on March 16, shortly after texting his wife, Sophia Mcphee, about feeling seasick, reports said. Carnival Valor had said in a statement to ABC News that it conducted a search-and-rescue operation after Grimes went missing. Rob Griffiths, vice president of maritime policy for CLIA, told Quartz that before this standard is finalized, false positives arising in real maritime conditions remain an issue. In a statement Wednesday, Royal Caribbean confirmed a passenger went overboard Sunday close to the Dominican Republic. The Carnival Valor had been at sea for only a day when calls came over the loudspeaker asking a certain passenger to please report to customer service.

Kenneth Schwalbe fell off a Princess cruise ship and couldn't be found

On the whole, the cruise industry has argued that the complete MOB technology is not yet advanced enough to be used. That said, cruise lines remain vague when it comes the status of MOB-detection technology on their ships. While some cruise lines have mentioned installations of this technology in media reports, an evidence submission to the Coast Guard, and a press release, those lines declined to discuss specifics when asked by Quartz. In the reporting of this story, nearly every cruise line contacted—other than Royal Caribbean, the CEO of which I interviewed aboard the Azamara Pursuit on Aug. 29–declined to comment on the status of MOB technology on its own lines, instead preferring CLIA to speak for them. And yet, even though a relatively small number of people fall from cruise ships into the sea—and critics of the industry tend to focus more on environmental damage and norovirus outbreaks—man-overboard incidents remain a vexing problem.

Although the crew alerted other ships in the area, the search continues, as the woman has not been found. If you fall from a cruise ship in the middle of the night and no one knows, there are a few things you can do to boost your chances of surviving and of being found, according to a survival expert. If your ship is involved in a search for a missing passenger, it might have to skip a port call or delay its return home to account for the time spent retracing its route to look for the person overboard. Play by the rules and remain in control of your actions, and you don't have to worry about inadvertently falling overboard from a cruise ship. Cruise ships have railings — usually about chest height on the average person — on all open deck areas and cabin balconies.

Between 2009 and 2019, there have been 212 man overboard incidents on cruise ships, according to a Report on Operational Incidents issued by the Cruise Lines International Association. "We greatly appreciate the efforts of all, most especially the U.S. Coast Guard and the mariner who spotted the guest in the water," the Coast Guard said in a statement Thursday to ABC News. "Cruise ships have safety barriers in all public areas that are regulated by U.S. Coast Guard standards that prevent a guest from falling off. Guests should never ever climb up on the rails. The only way to go overboard is to purposefully climb up and over the safety barriers."

That a cruise passenger’s statistical likelihood of dying as a result of an MOB is very low cannot be denied. But Michael Lloyd—a former sea captain with 50 years at sea, and now a marine-safety consultant, victims’ advocate, and cruise industry critic—posited a useful thought experiment. He asked me, as a journalist covering the travel industry, to imagine what would happen if, every month, one to two people died on an airplane for a predictable operational reason, such as sustaining a traumatic head injury during turbulence due to failure to wear a seatbelt. It’s a scenario I find impossible to imagine, after years of flight-safety demonstrations, seatbelt checks, and back-of-the-seat cards. The answers to these questions reveal a cruise industry that is surprisingly unencumbered by the accountability and consumer protection we expect from other industries, combined with poor labor practices that advocates and workers say have driven some crew members to suicide.

Passenger killed after falling off Royal Caribbean cruise ship - Business Insider

Passenger killed after falling off Royal Caribbean cruise ship.

Posted: Tue, 28 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Alcohol is a common factor in overboard incidents, Klein told The Times, especially when cruise ships peddle week-long drink packages that can incite passengers to over-imbibe. Klein estimated that alcohol is present in at least 11 percent of falls from cruise ships. But despite the headline-grabbing tales of murky seas and foul play, overboard incidents remain a real rarity on cruise ships, according to industry data and experts. Aside from patrons falling overboard, other deaths take place aboard cruise ships, but they often don’t get as much attention. It's much more dangerous to drive in a car, where the odds of dying in a crash are about 1 in 645. Going overboard on a cruise ship is extremely rare, but the vast majority of those who do are never rescued.

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Klein’s data only includes a relatively small number where alcohol was definitively confirmed as a cause. But he emphasizes that those are only cases where media could confirm intoxication prior to the incident. Given that media reports are often based on information provided by the cruise lines, he notes that this number likely under-represents the role of alcohol. There is no centralized reporting mechanism and cruise lines are not required to divulge this information to anyone. Of course, there is also rarely a body to recover, autopsy, and determine what an individual’s blood alcohol level was when they fell, jumped, or were pushed. Daniel Miranda, another passenger, told the station that cruise officials said that they had “verified through the cameras” that a woman had fallen into the water.

A rescue boat soon pulled the man to safety and he was treated for minor injuries. A month later, Norwegian and the Port of New Orleans recognized Giffel's actions with a ceremony aboard the Spirit. As a thank you, Capt. Evans Hoyt presented the teen with two plaques and the life ring he used to save his fellow passenger. In August 2016, a woman from Shanghai was traveling from Japan to China with her parents via Royal Caribbean when she took off for a stroll around the ship and never returned. More than 100 volunteers searched the vessel to no avail — everyone assumed she was dead. Two days later, the 32-year-old was spotted floating in the East China Sea off the coast of Zhoushan.

"I remember leaning over the balcony to look at the side of the ship, and the next thing I knew, I was in the water," Kirby told ABC News. What this quote doesn't reflect is the fact that Kirby was positively plastered at the time of the incident. She sued Carnival for overserving her and for not rescuing her quickly enough.

Of the millions of people like Samantha Broberg who step onto cruise ships each year, few are aware that their personal safety is in the hands of one of the world’s most globalized, legally complex, and opaque industries. While the vast majority will not meet tragic fates like Broberg’s, her story shows how the expectations passengers have about their rights and safety on board a cruise ship do not always match the reality. Here’s what her family has been able to glean about the 33-year-old’s roughly 12 hours onboard that ship, which has a capacity of over 4,000 passengers and crew, and boasts a rum bar, a tequila bar, and a sports bar, as well as a casino and a Mexican cantina. Broberg—who at 5’5,” weighed 120 lbs—was served 19 drinks, her husband alleges in an ongoing civil suit (pdf) he brought against Carnival.

That 3.5-foot height requirement is in place to keep people safe along the promenades onboard, Salerno told the newspaper. The low survival rate among those who end up in the water is why cruise ships heavily prioritize making sure people don't fall in the first place. According to a report from the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), there were 212 overboard incidents from 2009 to 2019, and only 48 — or 28.2% — of those who fell overboard were successfully rescued. “Cruise ships have safety barriers in all public areas that are regulated by US Coast Guard standards that prevent a guest from falling off,” the agency said in a statement.

It's unlikely Grimes was able to get significant energy from chewing on bamboo, but food would not be a primary concern in the amount of time he was at sea. Grimes had said he tried chewing on some bamboo, which Bigney said is extremely buoyant. Even collecting small bits of bamboo or driftwood could help a person stay afloat, she said. In a best-case scenario, you could collect enough that would allow you to make a pile or raft that you could get up on top of and out of the water, which would also make you safer from any potential predators. "All of these factors make it very difficult for people to survive if they're adrift," Bigney, who has taught at the Boulder Outdoor Survival School for decades, told Insider.

Tyler Barnett, a 28-year-old father of two from Houma, Louisiana was on a week-long cruise with his younger sister and their uncle when he went missing in the middle of the night. California resident Kenneth Schwalbe, 59, was traveling on the Emerald Princess ship when he went overboard on August 11 about eight miles off the coast of Hilo, Hawaii. Reeta Sahani was on Royal Caribbean's Spectrum of the Seas with her husband on July 31 in the Singapore Strait, the last day of their four-day cruise to Malaysia.