Cruise holidays are growing in popularity with thousands of people swapping the sand for the ocean waves every year. When you envision a cruise you may think of ocean views, exotic destinations, and onboard entertainment, but probably don’t consider the unique risks a liner may pose. One surprisingly common danger is passengers falling overboard. An ex cruise member has given a behind the scenes look into how the crew is trained to deal with these unfortunate situations.
Although you may no realise it, passengers go missing from cruises fairly frequently and this sometimes means they have fallen overboard.
In fact, in August of this year, a passenger mysteriously vanished and was sadly presumed dead after falling overboard on a cruise to Malaysia.
The man is presumed to have fallen over the balcony railing attached to his cabin.
CCTV footage showed the man entering his room the night before he went missing, and all of his belongings were found in his cabin.
Unfortunately, no one was aware of what happened, though crew are trained on what to do if someone does fall over the ship’s railings.
Brain David Burns is an ex-crew ship worker who gives readers an insight into life onboard a cruise ship in his book Cruise a la Carte.
He explains that “what happens if I fall overboard?” was an extremely common question from passengers.
His repeated answer would be: “The ship will stop and a boat will pick you up.”
Although he continues on with slightly less optimism.
He says: “Such was the truth if only half of it. If the fall of over a hundred feet did not kill the passenger, he would utterly disappear in the giant swells.”
However, in promising news, the crew are actually put through training that details protocol should such an incident occur.
“Safety training was very clear in the case of a man overboard: first throw a life-ring, then call the bridge,” he writes.
“People assume the life-ring is simply a floatation device, but it is much more. A person’s head will disappear from sight within a second from the deck of a big ship. After throwing a life ring we were trained to grab someone, anyone, to physically point at the swimmer and not stop until he’s found, no matter how long it takes.”
He does add an ominous: “But at night? And if no one sees you fall?”
Thankfully, research from Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) found that accidentally falling overboard is relatively unlikely.
The association said that after investigations were launched the actions of the passenger were deemed either “intentional or reckless”.
Furthermore, deaths onboard cruise liners are extremely low; just one in 6.25 million.
