Janet Richardson, the 73-year-old Ocean Countess passenger who fell into the Arctic Ocean while being evacuated from the ship, died on Thursday, April 21, 2011 in the Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary. Mrs. Richardson fell into the ocean on March 29, 2011 while being taken off of the ship due to internal bleeding. During the transfer, the rescue boat drifted away from the cruise ship resulting in Mrs. Richardson and the stretcher she was strapped to falling into the ocean. Mrs. Richardson was in the ocean for up to eight minutes before being pulled from the water.

Mrs. Richardson’s husband, George Richardson, hopes that an autopsy will give the family answers about what caused his wife’s death.

He is also supporting a police investigation into the bungled rescue during which his seriously-ill wife dropped from a stretcher into the freezing water off the coast of Norway. The country’s police, the search and rescue service and the ship’s owners are all involved in the probe.

Primary Sources: http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/cumbrian-husband-wants-answers-over-wife-s-death-after-botched-ship-rescue-1.831092?referrerPath=news

Janet Richardson, 73, and her husband were on the cruise of a lifetime to view the Northern Lights at the Artic Circle. During their trip, Mrs. Richardson, a diabetic, fell terribly ill due to internal bleeding. On March 29, 2011, the captain of the Ocean Countess cruise ship decided Mrs. Richardson needed to be airlifted off the boat for further medical treatment.

During the transfer from cruise ship to rescue boat, the rescue boat drifted away from the Ocean Countess, causing crewmembers to lose control of the stretcher Mrs. Richardson was on, plunging her into the 27 degrees Fahrenheit Arctic waters. Rescue boats took nearly 5 minutes to pull Mrs. Richardson out of the water.

Janet Richardson trying to stay afloat after plunging into Arctic Ocean

Mrs. Richardson was initially taken to Bodo, a city in Norway, before being flown to Carlisle’s Cumberland Infirmary in the United Kingdom. Mrs. Richardson is still at Carlisle’s in the intensive care unit.

A spokesperson for Cruise and Maritime Voyages, which operates the service, said that it is investigating the incident.

“Although we do not own this ship, we have been in contact with the ship’s owners and the Norwegian rescue authorities and a full investigation into the incident is taking place.

Primary Sources:

http://www.couriermail.com.au/travel/news/cruise-passengers-terrifying-ordeal/story-e6freqwo-1226042662240

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378935/Janet-Richardson-73-Ocean-Countess-cruise-ship-passenger-dropped-sea.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

The following is a description of a personal injury case we have filed. This is a case involving a personal injury resulting from a car accident in Miami Dade County, Florida.

On the date of the accident, the Defendant driver drove a Bentley automobile owned by Defendants RO-MA Holdings and Company Inc. and/or Francisco Inguanzo on South Beach after a late night event. The Defendant driver drove the Bentley out of a parking lot across 2 lanes of traffic and turned left onto 23rd Street heading west. Our client, a pedestrian, was crossing 23rd street with a group of pedestrians heading north.

The Defendant driver had been drinking alcohol before he got behind the wheel of the car he was driving that night. He pulled out into the roadway when the group of pedestrians was in the road and already crossing the road. Yet the driver failed to yield the right of way or otherwise avoid our client, one of those pedestrians, and negligently struck our client, a pedestrian, with his automobile. Our client has suffered substantial, permanent, and debilitating injuries requiring surgery.

The Defendant driver admitted to his fault by fleeing the scene. A Miami Beach police officer witnessed the accident, gave chase after the Defendant driver, caught him and ticketed him.

An investigation into the Ocean Star Pacific’s generator fire will be conducted by the Secretariat of Communications and Transport. The fire on Saturday took place on the cruise line’s only second voyage.

The incident occurred after the vessel sailed from Huatulco, en route to Acapulco. Power was reportedly restored after several hours. However, many passengers were said to have spent the night on deck due to the loss of air conditioning.

The cruise ship, originally built in 1971 for Royal Caribbean Cruise Line, had recently been renovated in hopes of appealing to Mexican markets.

Primary Sources: http://cruise-community.com/News/News-Headlines/Fire-ends-Ocean-Star-Pacific-cruise-no-injuries-reported.html?loc=interstitialskip

http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/post/2011/04/cruise-ship-fire-ocean-star-pacific-mexico-line/165296/1?csp=34travel&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TP-TheCruiseLog+%28Travel+-+The+Cruise+Log%29

Another cruise ship fire has caused problems for passengers and crew this weekend. Like the Carnival Splendor that caught fire in November 2010, the Ocean Star Pacific had a generator fire that shut off all power and set the cruise ship adrift on Saturday, April 16, 2011. Almost 800 passengers and crew members were evacuated and taken from the cruise ship to Huatulco, Mexico via catamaran.

The Ocean Star Pacific is part of the relatively new Mexican based Ocean Star Cruise Line. Fortunately, there were no reported injuries due to the ship’s generator fire.

Primary Sources: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/ship-of-newly-opened-mexico-based-cruise-line-loses-power-in-pacific-off-coast-of-oaxaca/2011/04/16/AFnrgQpD_story.html

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 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 loss of consciousness, burst compression fracture of T-7 body, fracture of the right T-4 transverse process and T-1 spinal process, comminuted right scapular body fracture in the sternum, right 5 and 6 rib fractures, fracture of the sternum, and fracture of the posterior wall of the left maxillary sinus.

The following is a description of a personal injury case we have filed. This is a case involving a personal injury resulting from a car accident in Broward County, Florida.

On the date of the accident, the driver who operated the subject motor vehicle negligently and caused the motor vehicle to crash into and collide with the motor vehicle in which our client was a passenger at the time. The location of the accident was West McNab Road and Rock Island Road in Broward County, Florida.

Our client was removed from the wreckage by paramedics and airlifted to North Broward Medical center where he was seen for multiple problems including face, neck and scalp abrasions and lacerations, neck and rib pain, and the inability to walk unassisted and severe retrograde and anterograde amnesia. He was placed on intravenous morphine for his severe pain, including severe head pain which was attributed to severe concussion and post concussive syndrome. Our client remained in the hospital for six days.

Our client continues to suffer from the effects of a traumatic brain injury and endures frequent headaches and seizures.

Three separate children’s products have recently been recalled. These products include the Arm’s Reach infant bed-side sleeper, Troy the Activity Truck, and Pampers Natural Stages pacifiers.

The Arm’s Reach infant bed-side sleeper can cause infants to become trapped between the edge of the mattress and the side of the bed which could result in suffocation. About 76,000 of these sleepers have been recalled thus far at stores like Babies R Us and Burlington Coat Factory.

About 40,000 Troy the Activity Trucks have also been recalled due to the beads on the trucks falling off. This could lead to choking and 2 reports of such have already been reported.

Choking hazards are also the cause of the recall of Pampers Natural Stages pacifiers. These pacifiers have been found to not meet the federal safety standards.

Primary Sources: http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/12_for_action/call-for-cation-uncovers-three-infant-products-recalled-due-to-safety-hazards-

The following is a description of a personal injury case we have filed. This is a case involving a personal injury of a Carnival Cruise Ship passenger on a cruise organized by SinglesCruise.com.

On or about April 9, 2010, SinglesCruise.com organized, promoted, and undertook to manage the safety and security of its group, including our client, at a party on the premises owned and controlled by Senor Frogs in Cozumel, Mexico. That event was called by SinglesCruise.com as the Cozumel Beach Party and billed as a party which included “unlimited drinks for three and half solid hours”. The party, according SinglesCruise.com on their website, has “a waterslide directly into the ocean and plenty of music and drinks to keep us partying the day away”.

SinglesCruise.com also makes representations in their literature and online about the control which they exercise over the cruises, the passengers on the cruises within its group, and the event which it hosts. They also make representations about the safety and security of those events.

Despite these representations, SinglesCruise.com failed to manage the safety and security of the event, that is an all day drinking party, where they knew people who had been drinking and partying, and where the patrons are allowed and encouraged to slide, jump, and dive into the waters below the seawall on and surrounding the Senor Frogs premises.

Even though SinglesCruise.com undertook to manage the safety and security of its passengers at its event and undertook to choose the venue for the event, SinglesCruise.com chose a venue which was not reasonably safe and was negligent in its management of the safety and security of the event. SinglesCruise.com also failed to warn any of its participants and passengers of the dangers of sliding, jumping, and diving from the seawall surrounding and on the property of Senor Frogs into the ocean at areas the depth of which was not readily apparent. As a result of this mismanagement of the negligent safety and security at this event, the failure to warn of the dangers and of the fact that the water was too shallow to slide, jump, and dive into, and the mismanagement of alcohol service at the event, several Carnival Cruise Line passengers and SinglesCruise.com participants over the course of the 3 ½ hour unlimited drinking party dove into the water from the seawall at the location chosen and managed by SinglesCruise.com and Senor Frogs. Our client was one of those Carnival Cruise Line passengers and SinglesCruise.com participants and when he dove or jumped into the water off of the seawall at the party, he struck his head on the shallow bottom and suffered permanent, debilitating, and serious injuries.