Table Of Content
- Heartbreaking video shows cruise ship passenger swimming, fishing with friends week before fatal jump
- Celebrity Cruises ship ready to sail with paying passengers, some of whom are unvaccinated
- Celebrity Cruises improperly stored dead body in cruise ship's cooler, instead of morgue, lawsuit claims
- Celebrity Cruises if facing a lawsuit from the widow of a man who died while on board.
- Cruise Ship Stored Dead Body in Drinks Cooler for 6 Days
- Celebrity Cruises let passenger's body decompose after on-board death, lawsuit says
Celebrity’s actions caused the family “extreme trauma by visualizing Mr. Jones’s body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity,” the suit reads. A cruise line stored the body of a passenger who died onboard in a drinks cooler for several days, causing the man’s body to turn green and decompose, the man’s widow alleged in a federal lawsuit filed in Florida last week. Celebrity's actions caused the family "extreme trauma by visualizing Mr. Jones's body horrifically decomposed, and knowing their husband and father was callously and casually left in a beverage cooler, stripping him of his dignity," the suit reads.
Heartbreaking video shows cruise ship passenger swimming, fishing with friends week before fatal jump
“Morgues are located on ships’ lowest decks, generally along what the crew refers to as “I-95″ — the long corridor that runs from one end of the vessel to the other,” according to the travel blog The Points Guy. “The reckless and careless actions and omissions of Celebrity directly and proximately caused Plaintiffs’ injuries, because if Plaintiff’s knew that there was not a working morgue on the ship, they would have had Mr. Jones’ body taken off the ship,” the lawsuit claims. The Adventure of the Seas passengers' close contacts were vaccinated and tested negative.
Celebrity Cruises ship ready to sail with paying passengers, some of whom are unvaccinated
“Instead, Mr. Jones’ body had, at some time not yet known, had been moved from the ship’s morgue to a cooler on a different floor than the ship’s morgue. The cooler in which Mr. Jones’ body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler, and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition,” according to the lawsuit. However, "When the funeral services employee in Ft. Lauderdale was brought onto the ship to retrieve Mr. Jones' body, his body was not located in the ship's morgue," the lawsuit alleges, according to CNN. "The cooler in which Mr. Jones' body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition," the complaint said. But when the vessel returned to Fort Lauderdale on 21 August, a sheriff’s office deputy and funeral home employee found that Robert Jones’s body had been placed in a bag on a pallet on the floor of a drinks cooler, according to the lawsuit. The room was not cold enough to prevent the body from decomposing, and funeral staff were reportedly not able to salvage the body enough for an open casket funeral.
Celebrity Cruises improperly stored dead body in cruise ship's cooler, instead of morgue, lawsuit claims
The ship’s required working morgue was not functioning at the time, the lawsuit says. Whether it’s polluting our oceans and air, causing illness outbreaks or even straight up massive fist fights and sexual assaults, cruise ships are pure trash. We can add “storing loved ones improperly in drinks coolers” to the list of reasons to avoid these floating toilets. When the ship returned to Florida, a funeral home employee and a Broward County deputy learned that the morgue on the ship was allegedly out of service, so instead the body was stored in a bag, inside a walk-in drink cooler, on a pallet. However, upon returning to Florida on August 21, a funeral home employee discovered that Mr. Jones’ remains were not in the ship’s morgue.
The ship is set to depart on a seven night cruise from Fort Lauderdale at 6 p.m. If the facts presented in the lawsuit are accurate, then they acted horrifically and should be held accountable. This isn't even getting into the health/hygiene aspects of storing a DECOMPOSING CORPSE in a walk in fridge, which presumably will be used to store items for human consumption. Not only was she grieving the loss of her husband of 55 years, but she was dealing with challenging logistics, especially as she was traveling alone at this point.
Cruise Ship Stored Dead Body in Drinks Cooler for 6 Days
While not every passenger on board has had their COVID vaccines – two adults and 24 kids, about 1% of the total passenger count, are unvaccinated – Royal Caribbean Cruises Chairman and CEO Richard Fain said Friday that he’s confident that the cruise line is ready to get back to business. Lauderdale was unable to salvage his remains enough to be suitable for an open casket wake and funeral, which was a long-standing family custom and was what his family had desired,” reads the lawsuit. Ships have morgues for this very reason, and there are supposed to be protocols in place for handling deaths. Those protocols aren’t always followed, though, and Celebrity Cruises is now facing a lawsuit over how it handled a recent death. Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. It also alleged that Jones was told Puerto Rican authorities might insist on an autopsy, delaying the return of the body.
Celebrity Cruises let passenger's body decompose after on-board death, lawsuit says
So, they have a morgue on board, but some how the body was stuffed into a drinks cooler by someone at some time. That cooler was already fulfilling its purpose while a perfectly good morgue sat empty! As we saw with the BuzzFeed News report on sexual assaults at sea, staff aboard these cruises are often not exactly trained in things like collecting evidence or (apparently) body storage. Most cruise ships have morgues onboard because passenger deaths can happen during a voyage, and vessels are required to carry body bags. When Marilyn Jones’ husband of 55 years Robert Lewis Jones died of a heart attack aboard a Celebrity Equinox ship sailing through the Caribbean in Aug. 2022, she was promised by cruise staff that his body would be kept safe in the ship’s morgue, according to the lawsuit.
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A 2020 study in the International Journal of Travel Medicine and Global Health found that between 2000 and 2019, there were 623 deaths reported on cruise ships. When the ship arrived in Florida, a funeral home employee and a Broward County sheriff's deputy found the morgue apparently out of service. According to the lawsuit, when funeral service employees entered the ship to retrieve Jones’ body, it was not found in the ship’s morgue.
More Details Regarding The Lawsuit & Justice For The Jones' Family
But when a funeral home worker and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy came aboard in Fort Lauderdale to retrieve Mr. Jones’s body, they discovered that it had been moved from the morgue to a cooler on a different floor, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday in U.S. The other option was to keep the body in the morgue, which is what Jones chose. Cruise ships are legally required to have morgues because deaths onboard are so common. In a complaint filed in Florida federal court on Wednesday, the family of the Robert Jones, who was 78, accuses the cruise line of improperly storing his body after death, resulting in its decomposition. She decided to have the body stored in the ship’s morgue as she allegedly would have had to pay for transportation from Puerto Rico to Florida. Marilyn Jones and her family are asking for compensatory damages in the amount of $1 million and are demanding a trial by jury.
Celebrity Cruises Kept Dead Body in Drinks Cooler for 6 Days: Lawsuit - Business Insider
Celebrity Cruises Kept Dead Body in Drinks Cooler for 6 Days: Lawsuit.
Posted: Fri, 21 Apr 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
According to CNN, the woman is accusing the company of improperly storing her husband’s dead body in the ship’s cooler after he died on board. Although requirements vary, modern cruise ships are required to have a working morgue onboard, according to a 2018 report by Thrillist. After all, each ship has thousands of people onboard, and cruises are also popular with elderly people, so every once in a while people will pass away. When the ship arrived in Florida, a funeral home employee and a Broward County sheriff’s deputy found the morgue apparently out of service. They found the body in a walk-in drink cooler in a bag on a palette, according to the suit.
Jones died of a cardiac medical emergency while on the Celebrity Equinox cruise ship in August 2022, which was traveling from Fort Lauderdale ports in the Eastern Caribbean. Celebrity Cruises declined to comment, citing the case’s sensitivity and “out of respect for the family.” The Celebrity Equinox, which cruises the Caribbean year-round out of Fort Lauderdale, is flagged out of Malta and can carry almost 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members. Lauderdale, a funeral home employee and a deputy from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office were brought on board to retrieve the body only to discover it wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
The filing said Marilyn Jones, her two daughters, and three grandchildren are seeking a trial by jury. According to the filing from Wednesday, the bereaved widow was given two options by crew members after her husband had died during the cruise. According to Celebrity's website, for cruises departing from ports outside of Florida, all passengers age 16 and older will still be required to be fully vaccinated. While all crew members are vaccinated, Fain said the company won't enforce vaccines among passengers leaving from a Florida port. Eight of the 14 ships within Celebrity Cruises' fleet plan to return to sailing this year, according to a Saturday news release.
I can’t imagine the pain and devastation of losing your husband while isolated on a ship and then learning your loved one was rotting in a cooler while you thought they were being properly cared for while you continued on your journey. The family is asking for $1 million in compensatory damages and they should get every red cent. The lawsuit also explains the extent to which Jones’ body decayed after being stored in the ship’s cooler, as reported via NBC News. In August 2022, Robert L. Jones and his wife, Marilyn Jones, boarded Celebrity Equinox, a cruise ship owned by Celebrity Cruises. However, according to CNN, a happy event soon turned tragic when Mr. Jones died due to a cardiac event. According to the complaint, Robert L. Jones, died due to a cardiac event while on the Celebrity Equinox cruise ship in August 2022, traveling from Fort Lauderdale to ports in the Eastern Caribbean.
