Child Dies on Cruise ship

A four-year old child has drowned whilst in the pool on board the Norwegian Cruise Line ship Norwegian Breakaway. The tragic accident occurred on Monday morning while the ship was en route to Florida.

The child was one of two found unresponsive in the adult pool. Sadly the child was unable to be resuscitated although the second child was airlifted to hospital and is believed to be in a stable condition. .

An NCL spokesperson had this to say.

“We are extremely saddened to report that a tragedy occurred on board Norwegian Breakaway this morning,” Norwegian Cruise Line said on its Facebook page. “Our emergency medical team was called and notified that two small children were rescued from the adult pool, but were unresponsive on the pool deck. The team responded immediately and quickly administered CPR to both children. The older child was then airlifted by the U.S. Coast Guard to the closest medical facility, accompanied by his grandmother and a nurse from the ship. Devastatingly, after many resuscitation attempts, the younger child passed away on board. “We extend our deepest sympathies to the family during this extremely difficult time and are providing full assistance and support.”

Norwegian Breakaway is one of the Cruise Line’s newest ships.

NCL Breakaway

It is an 18-deck ship with a capacity of 4,000 passengers and has a New York City theme with a colourful mural on the exterior hull designed by pop artist Peter Max featuring images of the Manhattan skyline and Statue of Liberty. The vessel’s year-round home port is Manhattan.

The ship itself has several pool areas, including an aqua park with a play area for young children. There’s also a supervised program for children ages 3 to 17 called Splash Academy.

Norwegian Cruise Line spokeswoman AnneMarie Mathews declined to specify which pool the children were found near. She also declined to say whether the children signed into care at Splash Academy or were supervised by their family.

Norwegian Breakaway Aqua Park and Slides

Pools aboard cruise ships are unfortunately not usually watched by lifeguards and swimming is at the patron’s own risk and though Norwegian ships have specific pools for children, they are not supposed to be in the pool unattended.

This is not he first tragedy to occur on a cruise ship. The first tragedy involved a young child also 4 yeas old, who slipped under the water on the Disney Fantasy ship and sustained brain damage. To Disney’s credit it subsequently began to assign lifeguards to the swimming pools on its cruise ships and as far as I am aware Disney cruise lines is the only one to have lifeguards on duty in the pool areas, But maybe you know different?

Disney Dream Lifeguard Donald's Pool

A second incident involved the death of a young child  aged just 6, who drowned on the Carnival victory. It would be easy to try to apportion blame on an inattentive parent or guardian but blaming someone is not going to undo this terrible tragedy. What needs to happen is for cruise lines in general to sit up and smell the roses. Here is an issue that needs action now, today. The money spent on-board these ships on food, drink, furnishings etc amounts to a huge sum. Surely the cruise lines can afford to spend a little more to ensure they employ qualified life savers to watch the pools all of the time that they are in use? Is this really too much to ask, or will it take another tragedy to make them take action? How many more children have to die before they see it as an issue?

I hope the answer is none. What do you think?

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About Me

I have worked in the Travel Industry for 33 years, ever since leaving school. My Dad was in the Navy so I guess I get my wanderlust from him. I was a Manager in a successful Travel Agency for 16 years before joining Cruise.co.uk. I am married and have a son who…

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