Cruise Medical Malpractice

Published on: January 14, 2025

Boaters, Dog Stranded After Cruise Ship Sinks Vessel in Florida. What to Know.

At least two people and their dog were left stranded, clinging to a buoy in the Tampa Bay over the weekend, officials said in a news release Monday.

The incident happened before 6 p.m. Saturday near Gadsen Point after a cruise ship caused a wake that made their boat crash and sink. Both boaters were injured in the incident and swam to the buoy to wait for help.

U.S. Coast Guard officials as well as deputies from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office found the trio at 6:11 p.m. Both people were taken to a local hospital.

Published on: January 6, 2025

Cruise Ships Reports Worst Year for Stomach Sickness Onboard in Over a Decade

By Leesfield & Partners

Hundreds of passengers and crew were reported among the sick in at least five separate outbreaks of gastrointestinal illness in December, according to reporting from The Washington Post.

Just last month alone, 781 passengers and 109 crew reported symptoms of the highly contagious norovirus. Such symptoms include diarrhea and vomiting. In 2024, the cruise ship industry reported at least 16 stomach illness outbreaks on ships. This is the highest number of outbreaks since 2012, according to numbers reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While the main cause of these outbreaks has been norovirus, other causes that have been identified include E. coli and salmonella.

Published on: December 31, 2024

At least four dead from cruise-related incidents on various cruise lines, officials say.

By Leesfield & Partners

A woman was found unresponsive in the water while on a cruise excursion and a man who died in a cruise line security’s custody, prompting an FBI investigation, are among four of the people who have recently died aboard cruises.

On Dec. 17, a crew member went overboard as the ship he was on was headed back to port in Baltimore, prompting a seven-hour-long search. The man in that incident tragically passed away. He was 23.

A woman died at the hospital after she was found unresponsive in the waters at Blue Lagoon, a popular cruise excursion in Nassau, Bahamas. Additional information, including the extent of her injuries or whether she died from ingesting a substance, were not immediately available Friday morning. The woman’s name has not been released.

Published on: November 18, 2024

Over 100 people sue after cruise ship illness. Now, the cruise line is being accused of downplaying the numbers.

By Leesfield & Partners

More than 100 passengers who traveled on P&O’s Ventura, a ship owned by Carnival Cruise Line, have filed suit after they say they got sick on board.

Attorneys for the passengers claim there were “repeated outbreaks” of illness on the ship between April and June. About 519 passengers reported for weeks about their symptoms of norovirus, a stomach bug that causes inflammation in the stomach and intestines and is highly contagious. The first outbreak allegedly took place in May during a two-week cruise around the Canary Islands.

In reporting from the BBC it was alleged that Carnival communicated that less than 1% of passengers experienced symptoms while Southampton health officials claimed the number was closer to 12% of passengers.

Published on: November 15, 2024

Cruise Ship Passenger Evacuated Amid Medical Crisis. Here’s What You Need to Know About Most Cruise Lines.

By Leesfield & Partners

A cruise passenger recently experienced a medical crisis and was successfully evacuated. However, in the experience of Leesfield & Partners, such evacuations are not always granted. When they are denied, it often results in serious harm to the passenger’s health.

One reason a cruise ship might deny a passenger a medical evacuation is because evacuations often result in a delayed voyage, which impacts their passengers’ traveling plans and their own schedules. Thankfully, the 69-year-old woman at the center of the recent incident was able to seek additional and potentially life-saving medical attention thanks to the evacuation.

The woman was taken by helicopter from her Carnival Cruise Lines ship to the Fernando Luis Ribas Dominicci Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was accompanied by her spouse and one staffer from the on board medical team, according to reporting from a national news outlet. Once there, local emergency responders transported her to Centro Médico Hospital.

Published on: October 25, 2024

Critics Rave Over Cruise Ship Doctor TV Show. Leesfield & Partners Knows the Reality is Starkly Different

By Leesfield & Partners

Despite great reviews calling Joshua Jackson a “miracle worker” for pulling off the antics shown in his new show, Doctor Odyssey, which follows the adventures of a cruise ship doctor, Leesfield & Partners knows the bleak reality and its consequences for passengers.

In nearly five decades of personal injury practice in Miami, Leesfield & Partners attorneys have recovered over $66 million for hundreds of victims of negligence at the hands of cruise ship doctors. Despite these companies marketing their ships as vessels with state-of-the-art infirmaries and staffed with some of the leading medical professionals in the field, this is often not the case. In fact, it has been the experience of this law firm that these ships have hired subpar doctors and nurses who do not meet the standards necessary to practice medicine in the United States.

These companies are able to skirt these regulations because they operate under different regulations while at sea, often traveling between countries and in international waters, paving the way for doctors who are not licensed in the U.S. to be hired for these roles.

Published on: October 2, 2024

At Least 180 Passengers Fell Ill Aboard Royal Caribbean International’s Radiance of the Seas. What Happened to Them?

By Leesfield & Partners

Over 180 people were sickened with a suspected gastrointestinal illness while vacationing on a seven-day voyage aboard Royal Caribbean International’s Radiance of the Seas cruise ship, the Centers for Disease Control announced Monday.

As of Tuesday, the cause of an illness that led to 180 passengers becoming sick aboard the ship had not been released. A total of 2,172 passengers were on board at the time and the afflicted accounted for just over 8% of passengers.

Three of the over 800 crewmembers on the ship reported being sick. Since the illness was discovered, RCI and its working crew allegedly increased cleaning and disinfection procedures to combat the spread of the illness, made announcements to notify passengers of the outbreak and collected samples from the sick for testing.

Published on: September 5, 2024

Doctor mistakenly removes man’s liver instead of his spleen. Now, his wife is planning to sue.

By Leesfield & Partners

The wife of a man who died during a surgery where his doctor removed his liver instead of his spleen is planning to sue, according to reporting from local news outlets.

The incident began when the man complained of feeling pain in his side while he and his wife visited their Florida rental property from Alabama. At the hospital, the man was allegedly planning to return to Alabama to see his usual doctor but was instead persuaded by a medical team in Florida to go ahead with the surgery, according to the family’s attorneys. Doctors are said to have “persuaded” him by explaining the potential risks that could arise if he delayed surgery.

A surgical pathology report listed the organ that was removed as a “grossly identifiable” liver that was partly torn. When removing the liver, the doctor tore blood vessels that caused “catastrophic blood loss resulting in death,” the wife’s attorneys said in a statement to local news outlets.

Published on: August 23, 2024

Largest cruise ship in the world makes headlines, stuns online viewers. Should passengers be wary of ‘floating cities?’

By Leesfield & Partners

Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas continues to make headlines months after its inaugural sail and people are still talking about the enormity of it.

Though the ship has been sailing since the beginning of the year, a recent video featuring its arrival in Port Miami has gained traction online with many users asking “how does this thing manage to float?”

The answer can be found in most grade school science classrooms – buoyancy. When a massive ship such as the Icon of the Seas is hulking past seemingly without effort, it is because it is pushing aside water, displacing enough to equal its weight. Structural designs such as a U-shaped hull help the ship carve through the waves and displace water. The hull’s round edges reduce potential drag and keep the ship from rolling. When building the immense ‘floating cities’ we know as cruises today, engineers must take weight distribution into account. Ships that are bottom-heavy will sink while the opposite would cause the ship to be destabilized, increasing the probability it would topple over.

Published on: August 23, 2024

Man In Coma For 42 Days After Seeing Florida Doctor Is Eerily Similar To Cruise Ship Cases. A Look Back At Previous Medical Malpractice In The Cruise Ship Industry

By Leesfield & Partners

A Tampa doctor is under scrutiny and faces formal review from the Florida Department of Health after a patient who went to him for a cough and sore throat ended up in a 42-day coma.

The initial doctor’s visit happened in 2019 when the 75-year-old man said he had body aches, a cough and a sore throat. He returned 10 days later with “complaints of a deep cough” and “chest pains,” according to reporting from The Miami Herald. A complaint filed by the Florida Department of Health states that the doctor at the center of the incident did not examine the patient but prescribed prednisone, an Albuterol inhaler and Tramadol.

A lawsuit filed on behalf of the patient claims the doctor was not in the office that day and prescribed these medicines based on what he was told by an employee at the medical center. The patient returned a day later, complaining of increased chest pain. When he went to the hospital, two weeks after the first doctor’s visit, it was determined he had pneumonia and was in septic shock.