Passengers and crewmembers go missing from cruise ships more often than anyone can imagine. Between 1995 and 2013, an unbelievable 198 victims fell overboard from their vessels – and these are just the incidents that were reported. But while a great many victims who fall overboard are fatally wounded, one victim miraculously survived her fall and has lived to tell a horrendous tale of cruise ship safety neglect.
According to Sarah Alexandra Badley Kirby, a cruise ship passenger who was sailing onboard the Carnival Destiny last year, she was encouraged to get drunk, later fell overboard and the ship’s authorities did nothing to help her upon finding out of the incident. She filed a lawsuit against Carnival Corp., the parent company of Carnival Cruise Line, with our firm and is being represented by our maritime lawyer Carlos F. Llinás Negret.
Court House News Service published an article recounting Kirby’s disturbing explanation of what went on the day she went overboard and the atrocious conduct she had to endure once she was brought back onboard.
Kirby claims a bartended kept encouraging her and her cruise mates, her fiancé and her friend Rebecca, to drink to the point that Kirby became extremely intoxicated. When she returned to her cabin, she stepped outside to get some air and lost her balance and grip on the balcony banister, falling seven stories overboard and hitting a life raft on the way down.
Fractured bones, lung contusions, hypothermia, and blood clots are just a few of the many serious injuries Kirby sustained. But what’s worse is the fact that immediately after falling overboard, Kirby’s loved ones reported the incident to the Destiny’s operators, but the vessel was not stopped and it wasn’t until two hours had gone by that the ship finally turned around to find Kirby.
Attorney Carlos F. Llinás Negret is handling the cruise ship overboard accident case and is helping Kirby seek punitive damages for Carnival’s negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress in failing to turn the ship around immediately after various passengers explained they too witnessed the accident, as well as for failing to have her airlifted to the nearest hospital for the immediate treatment of her severe wounds.
