Articles Tagged with Eric Shane

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Heavy winds over the weekend caused chaos for multiple cruise lines over the weekend and multiple injuries to passengers.

At least three ships were affected by the winds, with one incident being caught on camera by a passenger who was filming from his cabin balcony.

The first incident was caused by 69 mph gusts that caused the ropes of an Alaskan cruise to snap, knocking a gangway into the water. The ship, which was later guided back by tugboats, began to slowly drift away from the pier. The gangway fell into the water and was retrieved by a crane.

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A 12-year-old girl died after falling from a third-story window at a Massachusetts apartment during a sleepover with friends, news outlets reported.

Arya Lebeau died a day after the incident on May 24, according to reporting from The Miami Herald.

“I cannot express the amount of grief I feel at the loss of my only baby,” the child’s mother, Charlene Cabrera, said in a statement on a public GoFundMe page.

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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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Cruise ships leaving the U.S. have reached a two-year high, according to data from the Department of Transportation.

Allegations of at least 48 crimes were reported from Jan. 1, 2025, to March 30, 2025, according to numbers reported to authorities and published regularly by the Department of Transportation. Under the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (CVSSA) of 2010, cruise lines are required to report crimes like physical assaults, rape, and sexual assaults to the FBI. Of these incidents, seven were assaults with serious bodily injury, 10 were sexual assaults and 23 were rapes.

Robert McDonald, a criminal justice lecturer at the University of New Haven and former agent with the secret service, told reporters with Fox News that having a number of people drinking alcohol in confined quarters, “whether that’s at a resort, whether it’s on a cruise ship” there is a potential increase for these incidents to occur.

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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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For many vacationers, once the unmistakable combination of sun and salty breeze hit their skin, the worries of being on shore recedes into the background.

While cruise ships can certainly be an enjoyable getaway, however, it is important to note that passengers can fall prey to many of the same dangers that await them on shore. In 48 years of personal injury practice, Leesfield & Partners has represented clients who were victims of just that.

From an improperly maintained balcony railing that resulted in the death of a young girl to horrific jet ski crashes with long-lasting consequences, our firm has represented clients injured in just about every way imaginable on board a cruise ship. With these injuries, come unaccounted for expenses such as was the case for a crew member who went to the infirmary with

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A Royal Caribbean ship scored just one point above “unsatisfactory” in a recent health inspection conducted by the Centers for Disease Control; now ship officials are working to fix the issue.

In February, Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas had its regular health inspection in which inspectors found over 50 hygiene and safety protocol violations, according to media reports. The violations included improper food storage and crew members handling ice with open forearm wounds. Youth programs also failed to properly report children with GI symptoms, a cause for concern given news reports of a recent string of norovirus outbreaks on ships.

Typically, cruise lines must score above an 85 to pass evaluations. Symphony of the Seas narrowly passed the threshold with a score of 86, according to media reporting. To correct the issues, the cruise line alleges some of the steps taken included retraining employees and amending standard operating procedures related to food storage and reporting illnesses in youth centers.

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A video showcasing a passenger testing out a new slide advertised as the “quickest way” to travel eight floors on a cruise ship has gone viral.

The video, which has over 460,000 likes, thousands of comments and has been shared nearly 60,000 times, shows a passenger getting inside a tube-like slide and securing himself in a sack. Once the passenger was loaded up, the tube door closed, and the floor vanished from underneath him.

The man can be heard yelling all the way down, his laughter echoing through the tube. The camera then pans to the side of the ship where the slide curves off the edge, suspended over the pool deck for a moment of adrenaline-spiking danger.

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A norovirus outbreak on a cruise ship docked at Port Everglades on Friday left at least 169 people ill, according to reporting from local media.

Holland America Line’s Rotterdam ship was headed to the Caribbean, Colombia, Panama and Costa Rica over a 12-day voyage when it reported the outbreak of norovirus, which causes gastrointestinal illness, to the Centers for Disease Control. There were over 2,600 passengers on board with more than 900 crew. At least 152 passengers and 17 crew members reported being ill during the voyage. Common symptoms of norovirus are vomiting and diarrhea but can also include headaches, muscle pain, cramps and fever.

Holland America officials reported that their crew increased cleaning and disinfection procedures and isolated the infected to mitigate the spread.

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Whether injuries take the form of slip and falls on the pool deck or refusal to evacuate amid a medical emergency, Leesfield & Partners is here to help you navigate the waters of cruise line personal injury cases.

Every year, thousands of cruise ship passengers are injured aboard ships for a wide array of reasons. And, every year, thousands of these passengers file personal injury claims against these cruise lines. Most of these claims fall under premises liability, where a cruise line fails to maintain a safe environment for passengers on its ship. However, Leesfield & Partners has extensive experience in this area of personal injury law and has encountered nearly every type of case imaginable. To date, the firm has secured over $40 million for cruise ship passengers injured due to that corporation’s negligence.

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