Not a very good start to the new year.

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btboone

btboone

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Joined
Dec 5, 2004
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Location
Roswell, GA, USA.
We finally got to take the vacation between Christmas and New Years. We spent a couple days in Universal Florida and took a cruise to Nassau and Freeport. We were coming back to Florida and at 1:30 this morning, there was a general announcement (in all the rooms) with urgency "Attention: Bravo Bravo Port Side." They repeated it again shortly thereafter. Then there was then an announcement with some serious urgency for the Security Master to report to the bridge. Looking out my window, I saw blinking things and didn't know what they were I assumed that there might be some Cubans or Haitians in the water making a break for Florida and needed rescue. It turned out that the lead singer of the huge production shows fell overboard. They soon had helicopters and airplanes and everything. I went on deck and helped search for about 3 hours. The captain was using a huge steerable spotlight on each side of the ship. They circled the area where some strobe light flotation rings were thrown in the water for about 4 hours. There was nothing to be seen of him. I hear he was leaning back on the rail for a picture after some New Years merriment and flipped over it and hit his head on the way down. He probably was dead by the time he hit the water. He was so damned talented, and sang the solo part in nearly every song they did in the 3 shows. I have the memory of a perfectly executed Lionel Ritchey "Endless Love" that he and the lead girl did together. That haunts me. The man had a bright future.

I'll have the vision of the 3 floating empty liferings seared into my memory for some time to come. :o( Strangely enough, two of them became entangled with their short ropes only about 5 feet apart and the third, with a continuous amber light was only about 10 feet from those, even after floating for hours. I had wondered if it was a sign that he had done it. As we circled, I saw two other flotation rings in the water with only their retroreflecors shining in the black sea. There was no moon out and the whitecaps were playing tricks on me, looking like someone waving their arm. I so desperately wanted to find him alive. I was shivering from head to toe, but I simply couldn't go back to the room and do nothing. I was the only one looking from the front part of the ship right above the bridge. The ship is the Carnival Sensation, and it is due to sail today for one last time before getting a 70 million dollar upgrade, which would include handrails mounted on glass instead of the ladder like rungs, which he might have been stepping on one when he tipped backward. I'm seriously bummed that nothing more could be done. The Coast Guard gave up the search after about 2 hours to wait for daylight, and the ship continued to search. Needless to say the delayed arrival and long drive home have me in a bit of a funk. I have the chest cold from Hell with flulike symptoms and have a lot of stuff to make tomorrow. There were about 180 e-mails to answer and I'll have a hard time winding down.

Dang. Just Dang.

Thanks for listening.

It's on AOL's main news page, so I assume it's other places as well.
 
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So sorry to hear you were impacted by this event. Hope you can get back to your normal life quickly and with as little after effects as possible.

Here's a news article I found on the subject:

[SIZE=-1]January 1
[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Sensation
[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Carnival Cruise Lines[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]The United States Coast Guard received a report that an employee fell overboard approximately 20 miles off the coast of Vero Beach. Friends saw the man fall around 82 feet below into the water at about 12:50AM, threw him a life ring and notified the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard has launched a helicopter unit to search for the man. The ship's docking in Port Canaveral was delayed until 9AM while it participated in the search. Carnival said in a statement that the man, a member of the entertainment staff, was not on duty at the time and that six other crew members saw him fall. Eyewitnesses reported it was clearly an accident.
[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Crew overboard[/SIZE]
 
Man that's a heart breaker. Only thing I can say is that you have the memories of his performance, so he will live forever with you.

Steve
Who is never good at this kind of thing.
 
Bruce,
It's hard to see a man floating in a running sea... especially at night when it's dark.
When I was in the navy(1964) we were doing plane guard duty for the USS Hancock. They were doing a plane exercise of some sort, and when they crossed our picket station, we were order to follow and watch for any planes that might crash or fall over. They had two PBY's that clipped each other in the air and both went down. The pilots ejected, but we were steaming at about 16 knots and on the wrong side of the carrier.... the carrier actually was able to swing around and come back to the area almost a quickly as my destroyer could. We search for over 4 hours in daylight and never found either pilot. The planes must have plunged to the bottom immediately because I never saw them in the water. My duty station was in the radio shack where I was privy to most of the communications between my captain and the carrier captain so I only got one or two glimpses of the search..

It won't help, but remember you did all you could to save the situation. And it sounds like you did more than other passengers. Also sounds like the ship did all they could. Remember the man, but don't dwell on his loss or feel that you failed.
 
Man that's terrible. I always stay away from the rails. Don't like heights anyhow.

I hope the rest of the cruise was better. I've been on two and can't wait to go again. I snagged some Bahama coins for stoppers when I was there. Not to derail the thread...
 
Bruce

Sorry to hear that they could not find the crew member. I know you, and if there was anything that could be done by you, it was done the best it possibly could. You were part of the system that kept him with hope, and that is the best anyone could do for him, other than actually finding him. I hope the rest of the trip was a good one for the family. Rest assured, you did what you could.

Robert
 
I was wondering if the crew has infrared vision scopes, and if that might do any good. That and a bright laser pointer to be able to direct a rescue team towards someone in the water. The chance of ever being on a ship where that happened again is slim, but I think I would bring those and binoculars on any cruise I go on in the future.

It's hard to imagine surviving an 82 foot fall in either case, especially when disoriented and without expecting it. It might be different if you jumped feet first and were expecting it. You would still go so far under water and get churned around by the screws, that it still might be an iffy proposition. The water was so cold that we had to stop snorkeling after about a half hour, and that was much shallower water in daytime, so probably a few degrees warmer.

As we were leaving, the next batch of people were already lined up and ready to board. It would definitely have been a long day for the officers and crew. They must have spent the entire night investigating it as well as the search effort and the paperwork and legalities of it all. The show people would have had to come up with alternate plans, all while having no time to grieve for their collegue. Those guys all pull 6 to 9 month stints on the ship, so my thoughts are with them and their worried families.
 
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