There is still no good news in the search for missing Disney Cruise Line employee, Rebecca Coriam. Coriam, who was said to be missing after not showing up for her shift last Tuesday, still had not yet been located when the Disney Wonder returned to the port in Los Angeles on Sunday. Coriam’s parents were waiting at the port to speak to investigators and to collect her belongings.

Rebecca Coriam

Coriam was reportedly last seen when the vessel was in Cabo San Lucas, en route to Puerto Vallarta. The cruise liner docked in Puerto Vallarta on Wednesday.

Coriam made a call to a friend shortly before going missing, according to her family.

The Bahamian police, Mexican Navy, and U.S. Coast Guard are continuing their searches for Rebecca Coriam. Since the Disney Wonder is registered in the Bahamas, the FBI is not investigating this disappearance as they do not have jurisdiction.

Primary Sources:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ktla-missing-disney-cruise-employee,0,2840505.story

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Video-Rebecca-Coriam-Parents-Of-Missing-Disney-Wonder-Cruise-Ship-Worker-Travel-To-US/Article/201103415961341?lpos=World_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_1&lid=ARTICLE_15961341_Video%2C_Rebecca_Coriam%3A_Parents_Of_Missing_Disney_Wonder_Cruise_Ship_Worker_Travel_To_US_

The investigation continues for missing Disney Cruise Line employee, Rebecca Coriam, a 24 year old England native. It was noticed that Ms. Coriam was missing from the Disney Wonder last Tuesday, March 22, 2011, when she did not show up for her job as a youth activities counselor. The Royal Bahamas Police Force is leading the investigation since the Disney Wonder cruise ship is registered in the Bahamas. The Bahamas Maritime Authority, the Mexican Navy, and the U.S. Coast Guard are also involved.

Disney Wonder cruise ship

Ms. Coriam was on her second contract with Disney Cruise Line at the time of her disappearance. She started working for Disney in summer 2010. At the time of her disappearance, Ms. Coriam was on a seven-day cruise along the Pacific Coast of Mexico which had left from the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro the previous Sunday.

Primary Sources: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/03/missing-cruise-ship-employee.html

Yesterday, Sunday, March 20, 2011, at approximately 12:38 pm, a motorcyclist collided with a car driving south on North Meridian Road in Tallahassee, Florida. The juvenile driver of the 2004 Volvo S80 made an illegal U-turn, pulled off into the grass, and tried to turn around. This is when the 53 year old driver of the motorcycle, Barry Royce Fitzpatrick, hit the Volvo on the driver side.

Barry Fitzpatrick was taken to Tallahassee Memorial Hospital where he died from his injuries. The juvenile driver was not injured.

The Florida Highway Patrol is investigating this crash and charges are pending against the juvenile driver.

Primary Sources:

http://www.wctv.tv/news/headlines/FHP_Investigates_Fatal_Crash_Road_Closed_118329419.html

http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20110321/NEWS01/103210309/FHP–Motorcyclist–53–dies-after-crash-on-N.-Meridian

The following is a description of a personal injury case we have filed. This is a case involving a personal injury relating to an excursion purchased on the Celebrity Summit, a ship owned by Celebrity Cruise Line.

Celebrity is and at all times material hereto was engaged in the business of providing a cruise vacation experience to the public. Part and parcel of this experience are the shore excursions. Celebrity provides, organizes, promotes, advertises, and vouches for the safety of its excursions which are sold through its website, in its literature, and onboard its ships.

Celebrity in an effort to steer its passengers to its excursions, makes representations in its literature and videos and onboard about the safety and security of the excursion. Those representations are detailed below.

Based on the representations and assurances made by the cruise line, our client, a passenger onboard the Celebrity Summit in February 2009, chose to take a Celebrity excursion on the island of Dominica. Celebrity called this excursion “Cooking Caribbean Adventure”.

The Celebrity excursion buses in order to pick up the passengers at the pier to take them up to the excursion were in fact large, substantial, and appeared to be good working condition. Unbeknownst to the passengers, however, the Celebrity excursion switched vehicles and used a different vehicle in order to transport the passengers at the end of the excursion down the mountain.

The vehicle chosen and used by the Celebrity excursion in order to transport the passengers from the excursion site back to the pier was in fact a 1969 flat bed truck with wooden platform on the back. Framing was nailed down or otherwise attached to a wooden platform apparently to hold up a wooden roof. Flat wooden benches were nailed or otherwise attached together on the flatbed for seating. There were no seatbelts, roll cage, or safety compartment for passengers, no airbags, no framing to hold the passengers in, if in fact the vehicle did go off the road or come to an abrupt stop.

Further, this vehicle had defective brakes and/or steering and/or suspension and/or other mechanical systems. The vehicle was in this condition using a mountain road which was narrow, steep, winding, pothole riddled, and without any shoulder.

Further, the driver chosen by Celebrity’s excursion company was unqualified, untrained, inexperienced, and inappropriate for the commercial transport of passengers in such a vehicle on such roadways.

On the date of this accident, February 23, 2009, the vehicle used by the Celebrity excursion to transport the passengers from the cooking school location back down to the cruise ship, while on the winding, steep mountain road, lost its brakes and/or ability to steer, and when the bus attempted to make a left turn threw off the passengers onto the roadway. The bus eventually broke up and went into a gulley on the side of the road next to an embankment on the side of the mountain. Those passengers, including our client, suffered severe, permanent, and debilitating injuries. Our client suffered injuries including but not limited to five fractured ribs on the right side, fluid in the right lung requiring two chest tubes followed by surgery, compound fracture of both bones in left forearm requiring surgery, deep gouge in the right arm, and a scalp cut in the right side of the head requiring stitches.

The following is a description of a personal injury case we have filed. This is a case involving a personal injury of a crew member on the Celebrity Infinity, a ship owned by Celebrity Cruise Lines.

Celebrity Cruise Line provided an unsafe place to work for its crewmembers, including our client, to work and Celebrity cruise line was negligent. The cruise line allowed the stairs on Deck 8 to remain wet, slippery, and dangerous prior to and during a lifeboat drill. The cruise line required its crewmembers, including our client, to participate in the lifeboat drill. Of course, when our client was walking down the stairs, he slipped and fell down approximately 8 or 9 steps causing serious, permanent, and debilitating injuries. Those injuries included injuries to his knee. As a result of those injuries, our client was not stable on his leg and fell and injured his hand.

To make matters worse, Celebrity failed to comply with its obligation under the Jones Act and the General Maritime law to provide its seamen, our client, with prompt and adequate medical care. Celebrity Cruise Line delayed in providing medical care and then ceased paying benefits altogether despite the fact that our client was and is not at maximum medical improvement. This delay in providing medical care exacerbated injuries, extended pain and suffering and disabilities, and have caused further injury. Further, Celebrity has no reasonable basis for such denial and acted willfully and wantonly in such denial. Celebrity Cruise Line has failed and refused to provide adequate medical care or treatment.

Johnson & Johnson have recalled over 300,000 insulin pump cartridges due to concerns of potential leaking.

J&J’s Animas unit, the maker of the recalled cartridges and insulin pumps in which they are used by diabetics, said in a letter to patients last month that it found some of the cartridges can leak, resulting in delivery of less insulin than intended.

When a diabetic individual receives less insulin than they require, the individual can suffer from high blood sugar which can cause a potentially life threatening condition called ketoacidosis. Two individuals using the insulin pumps reported health problems but fortunately, neither patient was seriously injured.

The recalled 2.0 mililiter insulin pumps came from five shipments from the United States and one shipment from France between November 30, 2010 and January 4, 2011.

Primary Sources: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/08/us-jj-recall-idUSTRE7274EE20110308?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews

Recently, the popular peanut butter brand, Skippy, recalled a few of their products due to salmonella contamination. The products affected include the 16.3 ounce jars of Skippy Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter Spread and Skippy Reduced Fat Super Chunk Peanut Butter Spread.

Individuals who should be most cautious of Salmonella food poisoning include young children, elderly people, and individuals with weakened immune systems.

Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.

Consumers can identify a contaminated jar of Skippy peanut butter by the UPC code and the “use by” date. Jars that may contain Salmonella have the UPC code of 048001006812 and 048001006782. The “use by” date of contaminated jars include: MAY1612LR1, MAY1712LR1, MAY1812LR1, MAY1912LR1, MAY2012LR1 and MAY2112LR1.

Primary Sources:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/05/skippy-peanut-butter-recall_n_831896.html

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110306/lf_ac/8003756_skippy_peanut_butter_recall_newest_product_pulled_for_salmonella

The following is a description of a personal injury case we have filed. This is a case involving a personal injury on the Carnival Legend, a ship owned by Carnival Corporation.

On April 4, 2010, Carnival Corporation, on board its cruise ship the Carnival Legend, staged a comedy show in the auditorium called the Follies Lounge on that cruise ship. The comedy show was staged such that the theater management dimmed the house lights, had no spot light on the stage front stairs, had no barrier or visible demarcation from the stage to the orchestra pit, and had no net at the orchestra pit. Yet, the show’s personnel called our client to the stage and directed our client to walk up some steps and onto the stage. Carnival did not provide any demarcation or lighting to show where the orchestra pit was, did not direct a spotlight on our client as he walked to and on the stage which would have shown him the perimeter of the orchestra pit, did not provide any railing or barrier, even temporarily, from the stage to the orchestra pit, and did not provide a net to catch him or anyone who walked over the edge of the orchestra pit.

As a result of the failure of Carnival Corporation to adequately demarcate where the stage ends and the orchestra pit begins, failure to provide some physical barrier between the stage and the orchestra pit, failure to provide lighting in the auditorium sufficient to see the demarcation between the stage and the orchestra pit and to appropriately demarcate that border between the stage and the orchestra pit, failure to provide a physical barrier between the staircase and landing on stage on the one hand and the orchestra pit on the other, failure to turn up the house lights when someone is walking up onto the stage and directing a member of the audience, and directing the passengers to walk up a staircase with this configuration and dim lighting, and failure to provide an escort to guide passengers as they walked onstage, and to otherwise warn of the danger of an orchestra pit, our client walked from the staircase toward the stage and over the edge of the stage into the orchestra pit, causing him to fall a number of feet. That fall – and these negligent acts and choices of Carnival Corporation – caused the accident and caused our client to suffer serious, debilitating, and permanent injuries.

Svelte 30, a diet supplement, has been voluntarily recalled by its manufacturer, Svelte 30 Nutritional Consultants. Svelte 30 was sold to consumers from the Kissimmee, Florida sales office before the product was voluntarily recalled.

The company recalled the pills after a Food and Drug Administration test in January 2011 confirmed that the capsules contained sibutramine. Sibutramine is commonly known as Meridia, a Food and Drug Administration approved prescription diet drug that tests have shown to increase the risk of heart attack and stroke. Since Svelte 30 is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the dangerousness and side-effects of the capsules are unknown. The lots affected by the recall are 04-3000 to 04-5999.

Primary Sources: http://healthland.time.com/2011/02/28/svelte-30-recall-otc-diet-pill-contains-undeclared-prescription-drug/#ixzz1FLoqtbRv