Articles Posted in Cruise Medical Malpractice

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More than 100 people fell ill while traveling aboard a cruise ship with a planned voyage through the Eastern Caribbean over the holidays, according to reporting from Cruise News Today.

The Centers for Disease Control told the outlet that about 95 passengers and at least nine crew members suffered from vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach cramps during the Christmas voyage. The cause of the illness was not immediately available.

Following reports of people becoming sick, officials with the cruise line said that they were enhancing cleaning aboard the ship, isolating those who reported having similar symptoms, and conducted group testing.

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Two cruise ship passengers were evacuated from a ship off the coast of Washington state Sunday when hit with two separate medical emergencies, however, Leesfield & Partners attorneys know this is not always the case.

Thankfully, however, that was not the case for two passengers facing recent medical emergencies. In these cases, a 52-year-old woman and a 99-year-old man were suffering from separate emergencies. The woman was suffering from cardiac arrest and the man was experiencing “complete esophageal obstruction,” according to reporting from CBS News.

The ship is estimated to be around 145 nautical miles west of Cape Flattery in Washington state at the time of the evacuations. The U.S. Coast Guard coordinated with the Royal Canadian Air Force and Canadian Coast Guard to evacuate the passengers.

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Over 130 passengers were sick with gastrointestinal illnesses on a Royal Caribbean ship that sailed from Los Angeles over the Fourth of July weekend, CNN reported this week.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention said the official number of passengers who were sick was 134, with at least seven members of the crew that were also afflicted. Those who were infected were beset by symptoms such as diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal cramps.

The outbreak happened on Royal Caribbean’s Navigator of the Seas and was reported to the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program (VSP) on July 11. VSP officials are tasked with tracking and reporting gastrointestinal illness outbreaks, including norovirus, on cruise ships.

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While a cruise ship was docked in Santorini, Greece, a 31-year-old engine department worker fell, prompting an emergency evacuation.

The incident happened on Sunday, June 15, 2025, while the worker was heading down the stairs to the engine room. During the fall, he injured his left leg. He was transported to an emergency clinic, according to Cruise News Today, before being taken to a medical center on shore in Athens, Greece.

In nearly five decades of personal injury practice and representing countless passengers and crew hurt on cruise ships, Leesfield & Partners attorneys are familiar with the many ways in which injuries can occur on these ships. From terrible falls, excursion injuries, inadequate medical care and crimes aboard ships, our attorneys have seen it all — and all the ways in which cruise lines will attempt to skirt liability.

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Larger cruise lines are leaving Grand Cayman, an island in the Cayman Islands, off of their itineraries, causing a 25-year low in monthly cruise visitors, according to cruise news sites.

The latest data alleges that the Grand Cayman — the largest of the three islands making up the British territory — is experiencing a 27% dip in visits from April 2024 to April 2025. This is the lowest number in monthly cruise visitors seen by the island since 2000. This excludes numbers recorded during the pandemic, when the cruise industry saw a shutdown of operations to mitigate the transfer of COVID-19.

Cruise lines are choosing to skip this tropical oasis because it favors tender ports, meaning cruise passengers are brought to shore in tender boats. As cruise lines continue rapid expansions, it is unfeasible for larger ships carrying thousands of passengers to disembark using this method.

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When asked to name the germiest surfaces on cruise ships, one might think about commonly touched areas such as doorknobs, stair railings or elevator buttons.

While these places have been known to transfer illness-causing germs such as norovirus — as the CDC warned earlier this year — a microbiologist has revealed a far more surprising source of contamination.

Microbiologist Jason Tetro told the Reader’s Digest that private hot tubs on ships are a breeding ground for germs and bacteria. In October 2024, these private hot tubs on the balconies of guests were linked to multiple outbreaks of Legionnaires’ Disease on cruise ships. These outbreaks were linked back to two cruise ships on different cruise lines.

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A couple who told reporters with ABC News that they dreamed of traveling the world on their catamaran tell the shocking story of how they were saved by a cruise ship along their journey.

Helena Franczak and Dustin Leonard, two crew members and their three dogs were on the catamaran when it was damaged at sea in the South Pacific. The couple was heading to Fiji when the weather took a turn for the worst, taking the vessel’s mast and leaving them stranded over 170 nautical miles from New Caledonia, a French territory made up of dozens of islands in the South Pacific.

While stranded, they noticed a cruise ship in the distance and shot off a flare to get the attention of the ship’s crew. The daring rescue took extreme caution and skill as “it takes a little mistake … and you may sink them,”  the ship’s captain told reporters.

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A cruise ship’s captain died after suffering a medical emergency at sea, officials said.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the news of the passing of Captain Michele Bartolomei, who had a sudden medical emergency and died onboard Diamond Princess,” Princess Cruises told reporters with PEOPLE Magazine. “Captain Bartolomei was a respected leader, whose decades of service at sea exemplified professionalism, dedication, and care for both guests and crew.”

The incident happened Monday while the ship was in Taiwan in the middle of a 19-day voyage. Passengers were given the news of the captain’s passing in a letter that was delivered to their cabins that informed them of which captain would be taking over for the rest of their trip.

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Over a hundred passengers and dozens of crew members across three cruise ships reported symptoms of norovirus as health officials warned of new strain.

Officials with the Centers for Disease Control have warned about a “newly dominant strain” of norovirus, which they said could be driving the uptick in recent cases seen on land and on cruise ships. This comes after significant cuts to the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program’s (VSP) workforce last month. These employees were tasked with investigating outbreaks and conducting routine health inspections on cruise ships before their dismissals, which were a part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plan to issue layoffs to public health agency employees.

Following these cuts, CDC officials called the move “frustrating” and has exacerbated the already taxing issue of being short-staffed. When the news first broke of the layoffs, the agency was already in the middle of responding to two outbreaks.

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A Wisconsin man was with his wife on a 35-day Holland America cruise when he suddenly collapsed amid a medical emergency, doctors said he suffered four strokes.

The incident happened on day 10 when Greg Tomensky, 72, was on his way to lunch and keeled over, he told reporters with ABC News. This was the start of an hours-long ordeal in which he would suffer four strokes while the ship was hundreds of miles off the coast of Hawaii. Thankfully Tomensky lived to tell the tale.

“I am very grateful that they got there and what they did,” he recounted.

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