The body of a 36-year-old woman who fell from a cruise ship was recovered on Thursday morning, December 15 off the coast of Florida.
The woman had plunged off the MSC Meraviglia Cruise Ship on its way back from Ocean Cay, an island in the Bahamas. The US Coast Guard found her remains about 18 miles from Port Canaveral, Florida.
Passengers on the ship were alerted at around 5am on their last day of their cruise that a passenger had fallen overboard and they should stay in their cabins so that the Coast Guard could search the boat and the cruise crew could take inventory of passengers on the ship.
A 45-foot rescue vessel and helicopter assisted in the search and rescue as the ship’s crew did a head count on board.
One passenger on the cruise told a news outlet that the crew was preparing to lower a lifeboat at some point during the search and some were wearing life vests, but they turned out to be unnecessary moves.
Sadly, the rescue team realized that the passenger had sustained fatal injuries, so the lifeboat was never put in the water.
The Communications Director of MSC Cruises, Field Sutton, released a statement from the company announcing that early Thursday morning, the ship’s advanced detection system alerted the crew that a passenger had fallen overboard. He said the crew immediately conducted a search and rescue operation with the US Coast Guard.
The passenger was found with fatal injuries despite the medics’ best efforts. Sutton said that the Cruise Ship Company cooperated with authorities as they conducted their investigation and offered condolences to the unidentified victim’s family.
Because of the unplanned circumstances, passengers were delayed getting off the cruise ship and some people became frustrated. A fight broke out when the passengers were temporarily prevented from disembarking at Port Canaveral in Florida. US Customs and Border Protection arrested some passengers that were involved in the fight.
Just a few weeks ago, on Thanksgiving Day, a man fell overboard, accidentally, on another cruise.
James Michael Grimes, 28, had been having a fun time on a five-day Thanksgiving cruise with more than a dozen of his family members, including his parents and sister. The cruise ship was heading to Cozumel, Mexico.
The 28-year-old had spent most of the day drinking alcohol before he fell overboard. Although an area search was begun after the boat was searched, he managed to spend more than 20 hours in the ocean before being miraculously rescued.
According to Grimes, he accidentally fell overboard and was knocked unconscious. He woke up in the freezing cold water. He claimed that he had fought a shark off while he was in the water.
Grimes told reporters that he was swimming in one direction when he saw what he thought was a shark coming at him. The shark-like creature bumped one of his legs, but he kicked it with the other.
Grimes met a better fate than the woman from Florida and is happy to have a story to tell.