Copper10-8

Yep, that's how it's supposed to work! The security officer is the one taking the accident reports and conducting an investigation as to the circumstances of the accident for the purposes of finding out if a similar accident can be avoided in the future Just a piece of friendly advise; if you/anyone injures themselves on a HAL ship resulting in profusive bleeding like in your case, the best advice I can give is to call 911, stay in your cabin, and apply pressure on the wound with a towel. The 911 calls go straight to the bridge and the OOW (officer of the watch) will immediately cause the on-call nurse to respond to your cabin. For far more serious incidents such as heart attacks, strokes, etc., the OOW will use the ship's P/A system to make a "medical response" call, followed by the exact location on the ship this is taking place at(People might remember this announcement as the former "Brightstar" calls) which will cause an entire team of 1st responders to come running to the location of the medical emergency. Those responders train on this on a regular basis. Better safe than sorry! The actual medical center is "manned" during certain hours of the day which does not include night-time hours - the times are in the daily program. The medical center is not really an ER like you'll find at hospitals on land and which are open 24/7. Not sure what your experience was when you arrived at Eurodam's medical center (was it open/did you have to wait?), but one could find it closed after hours which can cause a delay in getting assistance. On the two smaller dam ships - Zaandam and Volendam, at least one of the nurses has a cabin off a corridor adjoining the medical center, but that doesn't mean he/she is in there after hours - could be at dinner, etc. However, the nurses take turns being the "on-call" nurse for 24 hrs. and will carry an orange colored trauma backpack with them wherever they go on the ship during that 24-hr time period. They sleep with that trauma backpack and have actually given it a name (which escapes me at the moment). So, calling 911 for serious medical issues, incl. a "profuse bleeder" will get you immediate assistance from that same on-call nurse. It the bleeder requires suturing, the on-call nurse will get one of the two docs involved

Assumes facts not in evidence Your Honor! There was no query made from this side! 🧐

And a classic from 1978 for SNL fans

You're right, I wasn't there, but I can tell you that it's SOP for the SECO onboard to get contacted by medical when someone, be it a passenger or crew, reports to them with an accident resulting in an injury. The SECO will then document that accident by following the steps I outlined in the earlier post. I can guarantee you that if the "slip and fall" resulted in a fracture, which it apparently did in this case, it was documented! And there's your answer

Attempting to put your mind somewhat at ease Disposed off plastic bottles and other polystyrene products of all sizes, from pax AND crew, will wind up in a room located on the ship's A-Deck midships with the somewhat unflattering name of the Garbage Room. In that room, one will find a hard working team consisting of a waste disposal supervisor with his waste disposal operators, all hailing from the Philippines (One of those crew positions onboard that a portion of your hotel service fee winds up at, but crew members you will never see during your cruise - there are many others). Those aforementioned plastics will be placed by one of the operators in an industrial size self-contained waste compactor and reduced in size. Those "blocks" of now squished together and compacted plastics will be hauled off via the same shell doors in the ship's marshaling area, also on A-Deck, your luggage enters and exits the vessel at either a port along the way (the plastics, not your luggage 😉), and/or the ships regular embarkation/disembarkation port before the next cruise starts. It is a regular and routine process for those hard working operators down there Unlike flying - read TSA - there are no restrictions, with the exception of water bottles - one case of 12 only - on HAL for bringing onboard plastic containers for oral rinsing purposes. Why the restriction on water bottles? Believe it or not, fine folks have boarded HAL ships after having emptied/discarded the H2O and refilled those Crystal/Fiji/Dasani/Arrowhead/Naja, you name it, bottles with alcohol for personal consumption. Go figure!

Ha! One can certainly ask to be connected to Risk Management but I don't have the # so one would have to begin at ground zero by dialing one of the regular 1-800 numbers

Are you asking if it's possible to directly contact Risk Management? I believe you might have left a word out but I am not the sharpest pencil in the box 😉

Go for it!

The security officer (SECO) onboard Oosterdam will have documented the accident involving your spouse (all the best to her for a speedy recovery), more than likely with photographs of the accident scene. This documentation with pics will have been endorsed in the appropriate signature blocks on said report by the captain, staff captain, hotel general manager, and senior (passenger) physician, and then would have been sent straight to HAL's risk management division in Seattle via electronic mail (after having been scanned by the SECO). Medical onboard Oosterdam will have prepared their own documentation, incl. the form you (or your spouse) prepared on her initial visit to medical. Accident reports are classified as controlled documents. Like other posters have already stated, if you (the OP) start off with using the terms "HAL's negligence" in your future contacts with HAL, the matter will surely, and I'm not calling you Shirley, wind up in the legal dept. in the emerald city

Excellent news! Basically means that, after a profusion of wrangle, the "powers to be" at CC have reached the conclusion that Roy and yours truly possess an extremely scattered sense of absurdity! 🤔

Unfortunately that's a no on the BB King All-Star Band on the Zaandam and/or Volendam. I personally think they can put a smaller BB King band in the Ocean Bar - the current group in there is a quintet incl. one vocalist. HAL tried doing it on, I believe it was the former Rotterdam, inside the Crow's Nest, but there were too many noise complaints from nearby cabins so they then put the kibosh on the idea. They should try in in the Ocean Bar.............

Thanks Oma! All is well here! Will have to get going on our last two days and trip home on Air Canada which was a super early rise but uneventful

Adding some Gaspé stops would be interesting! HAL used to stop at Saguenay on the other side of the St. Lawrence, another interesting call off the beaten path. Not sure if they still do......

Have great 2-week back-to-back! She's still a nice ship with a great crew!

Coulda met up! Next time! 😉 We're doing the "Big K" again this year for New Years! Take care and be safe!

Day 6 - 08/18/2022; Sea Day/Cruising the St. Lawrence River (con't) Lunch in the Pinnacle The comedy from Hank Denson in Main Stage

Day 6 - 08/18/2022; Sea Day/Cruising the St. Lawrence River Today (Thursday) is our only sea day of this seven-day voyage which, for the entire morning had Zaandam still plying the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The plan was then to follow the St. Lawrence Estuary, followed by entering the big St. Lawrence itself which we would take upriver to Quebec City and finally, Montreal. However, Mr. Murphy had other plans. As he usually does. At approx. 1025 hrs., just before the start of the Mariners award ceremony inside the Explorers Lounge, Capt. Willems came on the ship’s P/A to announce that unfortunately, one of our fellow passengers had gotten ill (non-Covid) and required care beyond what the capable medical staff onboard Zaandam could provide. In other words, this pax had to be medically evacuated (medevac’d). The captain and senior (pax) doctor had been in touch with the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) / Garde Côtière Canadienne (GCC) and it had been decided to carry out that medevac via CCG boat, as opposed to by helicopter. In order to get this done, Zaandam had to divert to Baie de Gaspé, a bay located on the northeast coast of the Gaspé Peninsula in the province of Quebec. The Gaspé Peninsula is located along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River and extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It is separated from the province of New Brunswick on its southern side by Chaleur Bay and the Restigouche River. The name Gaspé comes from the Mi’kmag (First Nation) word gespe'g, meaning "end", referring to the end of the land. So, the Canadian Coast Guard wound up dispatching the Arun-class 51’ high endurance, self-righting long range rescue cutter CCGS Cap aux Meules, staffed by a crew of four, two of whom are rescue specialists, based out of Cap aux Meules, on Grindstone Island in Quebec’s Iles de la Madeleine or Magdalen Islands, to Baie de Gaspé. She rendezvoused with Zaandam around 12:20 PM at that location and stayed off our ship’s starboard side midships while the boatmen were putting the finishing touches on Zaandam’s starboard side tender platform from where the medevac would take place. CCGS Cap aux Meules then began her approach to Zaandam’s starboard side platform and did so starboard-to-starboard (bow pointed towards Zaandam’s stern) with her skipper positioned out in the open on the vessel’s flying bridge. A flying bridge is a small, often open, deck or platform area above the actual enclosed pilot/wheelhouse, having duplicate controls and navigational equipment that can serve as a second operating station for the ship's officers, such as the captain or officer of the watch. The flying house usually provides unobstructed views of the fore, aft, and the sides of the vessel. We were still dealing with a pretty good swell so it took the CCG skipper/helmsman up to three attempts before his vessel could be secured to Zaandam to affect the transfer. Once that was accomplished, the patient inside a stokes basket was brought down the flight of stairs from A-Deck to the tender platform by four Zaandam crew members and transferred by them to the CCGS Cap aux Meules. His companion followed. Once those crew were back safely onboard Zaandam, the lines were let go and, under applause from those watching from balconies and railings, CCGS Cap aux Meules swung to port and set a course for the town of Gaspé. We later learned from Capt. Willems that the patient was safely at a local hospital receiving advanced treatment. A job well done by all involved! As stated, at 10:30 AM there was a Mariners reception inside the Explorers Lounge and as previously stated, Capt. Willems was unable to be there due to his involvement in the medevac. Cruise & Travel Director Glenn acted as master of ceremonies and hotel general manager Leonie Henry from South Africa was also present, as was Annette, the FCC, Daphnae, the GRM and Mitch from Guest Services who had organized the event. Two separate Mariner Society silver medal awardee couples were recognized, as was a HAL Presidents Club couple with plenty of HAL sea days to their credit. There was time for pics with Leonie afterwards. At 12:00 PM sharp, we had a lunch reservation at the Pinnacle Grill which on HAL ships is only open for lunch on sea days. Our lunch consisted of spicy lemon grass tomato soup, crab cakes, shredded chicken and bibb salad, and the PG burger. Pretty good stuff! The remainder of the afternoon was spent jelling and/or pretty much doing zilch, nada, nothing! That’s why we like sea days! After dinner, we strolled, actually fast walked due to the 9:30 PM show time, to the Main Stage where we watched the comedy of Hank Denson, a funny guy from Georgia. He had us laughing several times! We finished up the night once again inside the Ocean Bar listening and dancing to the Ocean Bar Band. Tomorrow (Friday) is our last port of call, Quebec City, Quebec with a delayed arrival of a couple of hours due to today's medevac See you then!

Good eye Marion! Yes, Kristine is one and the same! We had her on Koningsdam for the ship's 2021-2022 New Year's cruise to the Mex Riviera where she worked the NL with Patrick. She stayed on the "Big K" for a while longer until starting her vacation back home in the Philippines. She came back to work in June on Zaandam and is looking forward to visiting Africa on the ship in October! We will tell her you said hi. I'm sure she will remember you because she has a memory like a steel trap and, as you already know, is plain awesome at her job!