As someone who enjoys a cruise vacation, I have curiously followed the industry since I was a teen. As a young man, I can recall a conversation with a cruise staff member where I presumptively exclaimed the “awesomeness” of cruising during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Unknowingly, I touched a nerve of this particular staff member who corrected me by insisting such cruises were “sad.” As a young, not yet wise, man, I questioned how a cruise at the holidays could be sad. Without needing to ask, the staff member continued, explaining that many who sail during the holidays are sad people…sad because of the loss of a husband, a wife, a child or another person important in their life. She continued saying that this sadness was shown in the lonely moments of many guests, a sense that brought the staff member to describe such cruises as “depressing.”
I am sure that to some extent, these accounts still hold true today, although the “lonely” and “depressed” passengers have likely been diluted in concentration by ships that are 10 times larger. It is with this thought that Jim Walker’s blog post entitled “Man Overboard: What Really Happened Aboard the Carnival Fascination?” (http://www.cruiselawnews.com/) seems to have missed the reality of human emotions.
Admittedly, neither you the reader or I or Jim Walker knows what really happened in the tragic case of a young man going overboard; it may have been drunkenness, suicide or possibly horseplay. However, Walker’s cynical suggestion that everytime someone goes overboard a cruise ship, the role of the cruise line warrants more attention than the frailty of human emotions, especially of those who are depressed. While a frequent reader of Walker’s blog and admirer of his crusade to make the cruise environment safer, I wish Walker could check his lawyer hat at the door and understand some of the human realities of cruises and cruise passengers.
Earlier in this same article, Walker suggested that the idea of a security guard on the open decks in the late night/early morning hours was unlikely. I am not sure if such a statement was based on personal experience or from his condemning legal briefs, but this has never been my experience. So it is not surprising that when discussing the 185 incidents of a people overboard since 2000, that Walker seems to miss the reality of today. Fact, the National Institute of Mental Health in 2007 stated that the US suicide rate was 11.3 per 100,000 (http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/suicide-in-the-us-statistics-and-prevention/index.shtml). Why then would it be implausible that the vast majority of these overboard incidents could have been psychologically unstable individuals seeking to escape their personal demons? Could they not have been those depressed individuals who used to be more obvious to cruise staff members during the holiday season? After all, in the last 3 years alone, over 40 million people have sailed on a cruise (http://www.statisticbrain.com/cruise-ship-industry-statistics/). In that short period alone, if the NIMH statistics were applied to cruise passengers, one would expect 4520 suicides among cruise passengers.
Humans were given the unique ability to make choices, whether it be to consume alcohol, take drugs, act stupid or tragically escape a life of depression. Regardless of the choice, do we really think that being cynical or filing lawsuits or constantly seeking others to blame will bring an end to these or any of the other problems that plague the free will of our humanity? Seemingly, our society would be best served by acknowledging our human weaknesses and challenges and working instead, to help these people overcome. I am not quite sure how law suits solve such problems.
