
WATCH VIDEO: Woman Jumps off Carnival Cruise Ship
The US Coast Guard is looking for a female passenger who leapt overboard from a Carnival cruise ship after a commotion in a hot tub culminated in her being detained.
At 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, the Carnival Valor was 150 miles off the coast of Southwest Pass, Louisiana, when the 32-year-old African-American woman jumped from Deck 10 of the ship.
Witnesses stated that the woman, who has not been identified, leapt while her hands were bound. She reportedly collided with a lifeboat and possibly a railing on her way down and plummeted face first into the Gulf of Mexico.
The ship had just completed a 76-hour journey from Cozumel, Mexico, to New Orleans when the tragedy occurred.
AdvertisementLife ring off the stern of Carnival Valor after man over board in middle of the Gulf of Mexico pic.twitter.com/4HdAjMzjt8
— Johnny (@johnnytrupp) February 16, 2022
The US Coast Guard confirmed in an update to DailyMail.com early Thursday that the search for the missing passenger is still ongoing.
‘We have a fixed-winged flying asset onsite executing search patterns,’ a spokeswoman said. ‘An investigation into the cause of the woman going overboard is still ongoing.’
The Coast Guard was notified of the situation around 3 p.m. on Wednesday and dispatched two helicopter aircrews to locate the woman.
It’s unclear why she decided to leap, however several guests claim security on board held the woman in handcuffs after she allegedly caused a commotion with a male in the hot tub area on the 10th deck.
‘She was taken out of the hot tub by security.’ ‘Apparently she was agitated and went over the rail when they arrived to take her into jail,’ fellow passenger Kim Barnette told WAFB.
According to Barnette, the woman hit her head on the side of a lifeboat as she was descending.
Another passenger, only known as Randy, told the channel that the 32-year-old “struck the water face first.”
Neither Carnival Cruise Line nor the Coast Guard have commented on the incident’s circumstances.
Other guests on board the ship have been sharing notes about their experiences on Facebook.
According to one witness, the 32-year-old lady who jumped ‘had been causing difficulties for the entire trip,’ throwing a water bottle at security personnel and attacking one of them.
According to a passenger who claimed to be a witness, the woman was apprehended but managed to escape and leap from the deck.
According to Fox 8, a passenger on the ship suggested that the ship had turned around to return to the spot where the person had jumped into the water.
The Carnival Valor, a 952-foot, 110,000-ton ship, can transport 2,980 passengers and 180 crew members. It was built in 2004 and rebuilt in 2008. It has 13 decks.
The ship left Mexican waters at 3:27 p.m. on Tuesday and was scheduled to arrive in New Orleans on Thursday morning.
Johnny (@johnnytrupp) tweeted a video of a life preserver and a flare with red smoke pouring out in the sea on Twitter. It was written on the stern of the ship.
When a passenger is detected going overboard, cruise lines have a legal obligation under the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) and Coast Guard regulations to promptly begin search and rescue operations.
The success rate for recovering persons alive who have fallen overboard is roughly 25%, and this is affected by a number of factors such as location, time of day, and weather.
Carnival’s CARE team is assisting the guest’s husband, who was travelling with her,’ the company stated in a statement.
According to the website CruiseJunkie.com, Carnival has had the most guests and crew go overboard since 2000, with a total of 73.
According to the site, Royal Caribbean has had 55 guests or staff go overboard in the last 11 years, Norwegian Cruise Line has had 28, and Princess Cruise Lines, which is also owned by Carnival, has had 24 passengers or crew go overboard.
Every year, roughly 25 people fall from cruise ships.
In 2019, 26 individuals drowned while on a cruise, out of the 29 million passengers that boarded a ship that year. This means that the chances of going overboard while on a cruise are one in 1.4 million.
This latest tragedy occurred two months after a lady died in the Pacific Ocean after falling overboard on another Carnival ship, sparking an international search and rescue operation.
The FBI stated that it was looking into the incident due to allegations of foul activity.
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