A passenger has died after jumping from the 10th-story deck of the Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas during an Atlantis Cruise catering to the LGBTQ community.
The victim is a 46-year-old white male from Naples, Florida, according to David Begnaud, a national correspondent for CBS News.
Begnaud reported on Twitter that U.S. Coast Guard surveillance video shows a “clean jump” by the victim, who dropped 177 feet from the deck while the ship was docked in San Juan, Puerto Rico at about 7:40 p.m. local time on Wednesday.
Eric Patton, a passenger and community organizer from Nashville, told the Tennessean that everyone on board was “concerned and patient” following the incident: Crew gathered everyone on board the ship at muster stations to check off individual passengers on paper around 11:15 p.m. local time, Patton said. They were still counting as of midnight local time, but Patton’s muster group had been released back to their cabins. “Atlantis has been doing these cruises for decades and is so professional and welcoming. I know that their hearts have to be broken over all this. They’ve handled this so professionally and with such kindness to the passengers,” Patton said. “It really feels like a brotherhood on here. It’s just so sad this happened.”
More from Cruise Law News: The ship was chartered for a week long Atlantis cruise from Fort Lauderdale. Eight years ago, a passenger went overboard from the Allure of the Seas during an Atlantis cruise. The last time that a passenger went overboard from the Oasis of the Seas was nearly four years ago when a guest fell from the Royal Caribbean ship which was sailing in the Caribbean. There was a widely circulated video of the man going overboard. Four years ago, another cruise passenger from this cruise shipfell overboard as the ship sailed to Cozumel. The Disney Magic, sailing the same route, then rescued the passenger. Royal Caribbean had served the young man over 20 alcoholic drinks in the hours prior to the guest going into the water.
