gail

Sad story in paper about man missing on Carnival cruise - left cabin in early AM, no sign of since. Assumption is he fell overboard. I could understand how someone could jump, but how could someone fall?

travelinwifey

Suicide or murder. It is not such a rare occurance, though. I've read several reports on cruise critic where a person has gone overboard. Remember Natalie Wood? Same thing, no one really knows the truth. Sometimes people are saved, though.

Brahmama

Hi Gail,
I agree. You would really have to WANT to fall overboard. It would be hard to find a place and to pick a time when noone would be around. Early morning or late at night would probably work. Murder? ummmm, could happen, but more likely suicide, imho.

Songdoc

My guess: there's no way that's an accident. But as Kathy Bates said in the movie, "Delores Claiborne" -- "Sometimes an accident is a woman's best friend."

I can't imagine falling off a cruise ship. It's suicide or murder. But unless someone was drugged it would be hard to keep them quiet enough for murder. And if he was drugged, it would be hard for a woman to drag him to the rail and lift him over it. So, I'm voting suicide.

emd

You might want to go easy on the speculation on this one. The person missing is a neighbor and family friend of someone who is active on the U.S. board.

LoveItaly

Yes please stop this thread. The poster who is a very good friend of this family knows the terrible time they are having thanks to the media etc. No one knows what happened. Please don't do this kind of speculation.n Thank you in advance.

P_M

I agree with Loveitaly. Regardless of what happened to this man, it is a tragic loss and it is not appropriate to make jokes about his disappearance and possible passing. I just read the thread posted by his friend on the US board and this family is going through hell. For anyone interested, here's an article:

http://www.wjxx.com/news/local/news-...?storyid=28363

As for what happened to him, I can easily believe it was an accident. I am not speculating on how he went overboard, but let me tell you about what happened to a couple here in my home town. This story was in the paper a few years ago. The couple were on a Mediterranean cruise. It was late at night and they were out on the deck with nobody around. The man thought it would be funny to pick up his girlfriend and sit her on the railing. When he did, he pushed her too hard and she fell over. He panicked and jumped into the water to "save" her, unfortunately nobody saw this so they were both stranded at sea. Eventually they dozed off while floating on their backs. At dawn the woman awoke and the man was gone. She was very lucky and was later rescued by a passing tanker, but the man was never found.

I know you all don't mean any harm, but we don't know what happened so please, let's give this man and his family the benefit of the doubt. Thanks.

Franto

Perspective from a Navy man: the sea is a very unforgiving environment. It is quite easy to fall overboard especially at night when your eyes are not adjusted to the dark and you go out on deck. You get disoriented and off you go. It is a large ocean out there and it is next to impossible to find you. Literally, it is trying to find a needle in a haystack. I feel for the tragic loss.

Jolie

I don't want to offend anyone, but I don't see the harm in this thread. I clicked on it because I was curious - is it possible to accidentally fall overboard, because I would like to know, in all seriousness.

As for the people who know the family personally, are they really reading other people's posts about cruises right now? Because I wouldn't be. And if they are reading these boards, can they really be surprised that this subject came up? It was in the news. Should the news stop reporting any incident that results in death because the family might accidentally read the newspaper and be offended?

I agree it's tasteless to make jokes about the unfortunate death, but the actual subject of how difficult it is to fall overboard is valid. If it's very easy to do, people should know about it.

Diana

Jolie,

It really IS tasteless to "speculate" on how someone died when it has been brought to the attention of people that there ARE others who knew this person who have read the thread and were offended by it.

People are curious about car wrecks, plane crashes and what happened during 9/11 too, but out of thoughtfulness and sensitivity for those who have friends and family involved here, how about lets keep our public speculations to ourselves?

I think it's pretty obvious that it's not easy to fall off of a cruise ship and that the thread was started in order to fuel people who enjoy talking about this kind of thing.

btw, who are you to say what the people involved should and should not be reading or doing?

myob...

gail

As the one who started this thread, it was not done with any morbid intent. I seem to have a great fear of falling into deep places/off high spots - as evidenced by my posts before going to the Grand Canyon. As you can see - I started post with the words "SAD STORY" - and had no idea at the time it was posted that there was a parallel thread going on US board from someone stating to have a close friendship was family of deceased.

I agree it is tasteless to speculate how a specific person ended up off a cruise ship - but that was not my question. If people chose to answer it that way, that is there issue, not mine.

When I saw the responses my post generated, I chose not to respond since this was not a CSI question.

Jolie

I stand by what I said. Anyone who lost a loved one recently on a cruise would NOT be reading this thread in the first place, and even if they were, that's not a reason to stop honest communication. Being politically correct is one thing, but use some common sense too.

However, since the subject of this thread has morphed away from it's original purpose, I am not objecting to having it locked, closed, ignored, etc. What I was pointing out is that the original subject of this thread is perfectly valid.

SUNSHINE1223

I just wanted to say my condolences to the family. I am sure it is very hard time for them. That is my one fear while cruising. I like to make sure my nieces and nephews come in for the night safe. You just never know the circumstances.

P_M

I hate to report this, but it's happened again.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...33.htm&sc=1110

mariev

Just returned from another cruise, it was GREAT! I think it would be extremely difficult to fall over board. The rails are all to at least chest hights. Of course in a storm it might be possible but what is someone doing out on the top deck in a storm?

Guin

I just returned from that cruise. It was very sad. They paged her on the intercom all through the night, searched every cabin and turned the ship around to look for her before the coast guard could take over.

I will have to say that it was impressive how Carnival reacted. They turned the boat around before they searched the ship. We didn't arrive in port until 6 or 7 hours after we were supposed to. They weren't planning to provide lunch, but they did and they also came up with several last minute activities to keep people busy. (It was pouring rain, so the options were limited, but they did it.) They even helped people get their flights changed even if they hadn't booked them through Carnival. I say this to you knowing that Carnival is likely to catch a lot of bad press about this, with 2 incidents in just over a week, but I think they did everything they could.

Distasteful jokes are horrible in a time like this. Even on the ship I heard one (almost everyone within earshot but me laughed at it, too). I think people just get uncomfortable and sad, thinking it could have happened to their family, so they might turn to humor or speculation to relieve the stress. Most people were generally considerate, but there were still a lot of rumors and speculation on board by everyone.

As far as this original post goes, I think it was harmless and again human nature to question how could this happen. I've asked myself the same question for the past day and a half. I don't think it would be easy. The rails on the Pride have glass below them, not bars, and they come up to almost chest high on me and I am a taller than average woman. The woman's room had a balcony that went straight down to the water. If someone planned to commit suicide, that would have been the place to do it from. But her purse was reportedly found up on deck and she had been seen by several in a public place shortly before she turned up missing. I like to think it must have been an accident if she went overboard. Much freakier accidents have been know to happen.

My thoughts are with the family. They were with her on the cruise.

P_M

Guin, thanks for your perspective. This is very sad indeed.

I was on a cruise once where a passenger died of a heart attack on board. I saw the grieving family as they got the news and it broke my heart. As sad as that was, at least they knew what happened to him and were able to bring him home and lay him to rest. I can only imagine how hard it would be to lose a family member and to forever wonder what happened.

I have been on many cruises and I can understand why some people say it's hard to fall overboard by accident, but let's be aware that although it's not common, it can and does happen. I'm glad to hear Carnival handled the situation so well.