Man overboard on Norwegian Star

[Omega1]

You are correct, no one said never, including BirdTravels.

SakeDad said "for YEARS without anyone going overboard" which most reasonable people would accept as an assertion based on his experiences that no one ever goes overboard.

 

If ever there was a thread that needs to shutdown, it's this one...

 

You’re probably right. Despite all the pedantry, it appears that, on average, people go over the side once a month.

This thread had driven me over the side - bye - splash.

[GOARMY]

Have been following this Thread, as it has unraveled over time.

 

Our son and his family are onboard. Actually, they were able to board around midnight (local time) on that first day. Therefore, port call at Kotor was canceled. Too bad, as my wife and I encouraged them to book this cruise with ports-of-call we have visited on previous cruises--with Kotor being our favorite. Last visited there April, 2017 aboard Regent's Explorer.

 

Fortunately, subsequent onboard reports have been positive as to service, attitude of crew, and later stops.

 

GOARMY!

[hal2008]

43 years going to sea, 4 of them on cruise ships, never had anyone go overboard. Does it happen? Sure. Have I seen it? Nope.

 

70 years of jay-walking on NYC streets (almost once every week), never been hit by a car.

 

Does that mean, one should argue when statistics are presented about how many are hit by car in NYC streets every week?

 

Funny, how this thread turned into probability and statistics discussion

 

a) MOB cases are rare but do happen lot more than what many people think

b) various factors determines if a particular incident catches media attention or not

[mickey89]

Have been following this Thread, as it has unraveled over time.

 

Our son and his family are onboard. Actually, they were able to board around midnight (local time) on that first day. Therefore, port call at Kotor was canceled. Too bad, as my wife and I encouraged them to book this cruise with ports-of-call we have visited on previous cruises--with Kotor being our favorite. Last visited there April, 2017 aboard Regent's Explorer.

 

Fortunately, subsequent onboard reports have been positive as to service, attitude of crew, and later stops.

 

GOARMY!

Normally Kotor is on the itinerary to make it a VAT free cruise. Missing the port has it had any affect on cruise VAT status?

[Markj]

 

Funny, how this thread turned into probability and statistics discussion

 

 

Yes - and who cares!!

 

What we are really interested in is "why/how" she ended up in the sea

 

And then

 

What's the outcome or result of her actions

[old nutter]

Normally Kotor is on the itinerary to make it a VAT free cruise. Missing the port has it had any affect on cruise VAT status?

 

Maybe that is why they stopped off in Bar on Monday evening - still Montenegro and so non-EU. The run into Kotor would have been very slow and time consuming but going to Bar meant that they could get there at full speed because Bar is right on the Adriatic coast.

 

Montenegro uses the Euro but is not inside the EU. When they became independent the government felt they were too small to support their own currency, so they opted to tie the economy to the German Mark and when Germany changed to the Euro, Montenegro went with them.

[mickey89]

Thanks, probably Bar was a good substitute

[kathy884]

Theysay the trick is to float, not tread water or swim.

 

Exactly.Swimming/treading water would definitely exhaust someone quickly, but it'sentirely unnecessary. You practice floating techniques. And as others havenoted earlier in this thread - as a flight attendant, she surely would havereceived training in water survival.

 

My first reaction, but maybe that's because as a kid I worked as a lifeguard, so took those water safety instruction classes and paid a lot of attention, etc. was that perhaps she used the drown proofing technique that I know was a requirement at our high school to learn and practice and amazingly takes very little energy. Is there any coverage as to if she used that or what floating technique she used? Coverage like that I think would be good public relations and perhaps encourage people not familiar with this technique to be aware of it and try it just in case of unforeseen circumstances some time. The one thing something like this does for me is get me to remind my family about how that drown proofing technique works (something that I showed them before but haven't talked about with them in years) and have them try it in the pool again.

 

There are probably other better videos, but here is one I found that does a decent job of showing this.

 

Of course as so many have mentioned, the warm waters (HUGE factor), not hitting something going down, etc. were all factors that helped her survival.

 

This woman is someone's daughter, someone's dear friend, who of us wouldn't want the same to have been done for someone we are close to.

 

 

 

[jagsfan]

I can see where that would work in a pool and not be exhausting.

In the ocean or even a lake or a river if the water is choppy, how would you get your face out of the water enough to take a breath?

We have a lot of water here, not just pools, and if you’re actually in it, the waves tend to feel pretty high.

Serious question, not being picky.

 

 

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[kathy884]

I can see where that would work in a pool and not be exhausting.

In the ocean or even a lake or a river if the water is choppy, how would you get your face out of the water enough to take a breath?

We have a lot of water here, not just pools, and if you’re actually in it, the waves tend to feel pretty high.

Serious question, not being picky.

 

 

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You raise a valid point. I'm no expert, that's for sure. But one thing about the drown proofing technique is that you are certainly working to get that breath a lot less often than other methods of staying a float, just doing the minimal to grab that air. You are struggling with waves and elements much less than with other methods of staying a float that I know of. You just roll and float with them and stay pretty close to the surface of the water with this body position. And then you exert minimal effort with legs and hands, just enough to take a breath and go back into that very relaxed drown proofing position. You'll see some videos with instruction to just be turning one's head to the side and grabbing air like people do swimming when doing the crawl or freestyle. I know when I've tried it playing around in wavy conditions out of curiosity, it was pretty easy for me to grab that breath of air. But I'm not talking extreme conditions, and I'm more comfortable in the water than most people as a previous competitive swimmer. I certainly have a lot of respect for mother nature, and extreme conditions would certainly lessen a person's chance of survival. It's the best technique I'm aware of, and the calmer and warmer the water is, the better for sure.

[jagsfan]

And the calmer the person is. My children were competitive swimmers and made it look so easy, even fly. Took after their dad

I could not swim and breathe. Two or three strokes and I was gasping for air.

Every child should be able to swim to the point of being comfortable in the water and not panic.

Obviously the British woman stayed calm and that’s what saved her

 

 

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[luv2gonow]

I’m sorry one cannot accidentally fall off a cruise ship end of story.

[megaj5]

It has been very interesting reading everyone's thoughts & perspectives , as an actual passenger on this sailing of the NCL Star.

 

Firstly I cannot speak for everyone on board , but here is my perspective of this unfortunate incident:

 

It really was a port intensive itinerary , we had to tender in 3 ports- not great and we had one day at sea to really enjoy the ship.

The crew and staff were very attentive, worked extremely hard and were eager to make everyone's cruise experience a positive one.

 

It ended well that this passenger was rescued alive, but she truly caused unbelievable grief for all of the other passengers on board , which was so utterly ridiculous.

I feel she must be accountable and apologize!!

It's was infuriating to see her giving interviews after being rescued by the Croatian Coastguard on every international news station and no apology for her actions!!!!

 

NCL Star did help and set up lap tops and ship to shore phones for all guests to rebook flights etc., but it was so difficult because of numbers requiring this .

They also served breakfast and lunch to passengers before the ship arrived in Venice.

 

The Disembarkation process however was truly a horrible. The worst we have experienced!!!

We arrived into the Port of Venice at 2:00pm - 6 hours late, and were kept waiting on a hot deck with everyone for until Venice Police cleared the ship for disembarkation due to the incident.

 

Big mistake here in my opinion!! The NCL staff should have announced that everyone stay in their cabins and start the disembarking process once the Police had left.

Also they could have had better communication with staff to use more than one ramp when disembarking.

We only later found out much later after running into other passengers that they actually had another ramp , but it wasn't clearly communicated to everyone!!

Finally after a few women felt faint while waiting and a couple of jugs of cold water and plastic cups showed up!!! Really!! Not acceptable in the heat & humidity!!!

 

Everyone was already upset that we arrived late , had to find our own flight & hotel arrangements. It was no easy task and then there is also the unwanted expensenses that are going to take people time to get back from their insurance companies!!!

 

NCL Star definetly need to reassess their disembarkation process ASAP . It can definetly be more done much more efficiently without all the unecessary grief and chaos, especially after what everyone had to go through.

 

As it turned out, we were had to stay in Venice for 2 more days, due to our new flight arrangements. Venice is a phenominal place to have to stay in longer!!!

I will always have this bizarre cruise story to share with family and friends for sure!!!

[bluesea777]

SHE DID JUMP !!!

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6098301/British-woman-survived-ten-hours-Adriatic-DID-jump-say-cruise-investigators.html

[kirsty_r]

No surprise there.

 

 

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[Markj]

I do always worry about stories in the tabloid newspapers - however if what the Mail is reporting is true then:

 

If I was out of pocket I would still be wanting recompense from her - if that means she is ultimately made bankrupt then so be it. Why should people who have lost money as a result of her actions just have to do nothing and suffer the consequence.

 

She should be banned from every cruise line (and ferry line) to prevent this from ever happening again

 

Do her employers really want someone who is supposed to be "responsible for your safety" (as airline pilots are always telling us) doing the job of flight attendant? If she is capable of jumping off a ship on purpose then what else is she capable of? There was a huge inquest about the German pilot who crashed a plane and his mental state at the time. So whether she has issues or was blind drunk I would not want her on my plane!!

 

 

Of course we are all glad that no life was lost - but that does not excuse her actions - so she should face the consequences of those actions

[teasetgirl]

What I don't understand is, she was admitted to a pyschiatric unit for 1/2 days, then released very quickly after that.

If she was suicidal/unstable why was she let out after such a short time?

[bmwman]

Hi Mickey89 no word from you since the news is she jumped. I think an apology would be a good start.

[billslowsky]

the "ban" statements, and the statements about the woman being billed for the rescue effort were the irresponsible statements. We don't know how or why she fell overboard, we can only infer, but those statements imply that she was negligent in falling over board, and no one else was. Once the facts of the cases are known to the proper authorities, and if it's determined this woman was responsible, then that's the point at which a banning and/or bill to them should be considered, not before then.

 

lol

[Omega1]

If I was out of pocket I would still be wanting recompense from her - if that means she is ultimately made bankrupt then so be it.

I don’t think there is any point of resorting to litigation if there is pretty much no chance of recovering your losses and legal fees. Good money after bad. Very annoying though and seems wrong that she seems to just breeze on without having to account for her actions.

[Trimone]

Daily Mail reports she is going back to work next week, who would fly on an aircraft with her as stewardess? Let see if I can jump and survive...

[CrossBluePerchance]

Daily Mail reports she is going back to work next week, who would fly on an aircraft with her as stewardess? Let see if I can jump and survive...

 

 

How long before her position is 'unexpectedly terminated due to business model adjustments', or somesuch?

[TIGGERLARRY]

Where the hell did you get this info??? I have worked on ships for YEARS without anyone going overboard. This is a really ill-informed (trust me, I had other words!) statement to make. Go check your FACTS!

People who work in an industry have a tendency to be myopic . IF you conduct basic research, you will find figures that the average is 20 per year, underreported by your industry .

 

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[billslowsky]

People who work in an industry have a tendency to be myopic . IF you conduct basic research, you will find figures that the average is 20 per year, underreported by your industry .

 

Sent from my VS995 using Forums mobile app

 

Oh good, more unsupported data. We already had someone publish data that showed 12 per year.

[sfaaa]

What I don't understand is, she was admitted to a pyschiatric unit for 1/2 days, then released very quickly after that.

If she was suicidal/unstable why was she let out after such a short time?

 

It costs local taxpayer money to keep a foreigner like her in hospital especially if hospital bed vacancy is at a premium.