A passenger who fell from the deck of a Carnival cruise ship has died, according to multiple reports.
Fox News reported the Carnival Cruise Line had confirmed the death of one of their passengers, who fell from the ninth deck of the Carnival Horizon to the fifth, while the ship was on its way back to PortMiami.
In a statement, the Carnival Cruise offered its condolences to the family of the deceased passenger, Fox News reported. Wink News reported that the passenger had died while the trauma helicopter was en route to airlift the passenger to a nearby hospital.
“We can confirm the death of a guest on Carnival Horizon as the ship was returning to Miami on Friday evening,” a spokesperson for the Carnival Cruise said in the statement. “Our CareTeam continues to provide support to the guest’s family and we cooperated with the standard law enforcement investigation when the ship arrived to PortMiami on Saturday morning. Our thoughts and prayers are with the guest’s family.”
Cyndi Knox, a witness on the cruise ship at the time, was looking down onto the fifth floor, which had been blocked off by the ship’s staff following the accident. She, and other passengers, were told that the person who fell had died, CBS Miami reported.
“We definitely saw something was up when we were looking over our balcony and we’re seeing a section of the fifth floor it’s blocked off and people are standing around guarding where you can’t get to it and all the furniture is pushed out of the way. You knew something was up you just didn’t know what. I asked our cabin steward, ‘Life Flight didn’t come last night, is everything ok?’ And he said, ‘No, he passed away,'” Knox said, CBS Miami reported.
“It’s just a thing you can’t fathom,” Knox said, Wink News reported.
As soon as Carnival Horizon docked at Miami on the morning of Nov. 16 authorities were investigating the fall and the death of the passenger with the cruise line’s cooperation. Local authorities have not yet released the identity of the passenger who died, according to several reports.
Fox News reported that the Carnival Horizon was on a six-day cruise to the western Caribbean, which included stops in Jamaica, Cayman Islands, and Mexico. It was returning from its six-day cruise to Miami when the accident happened.
