HMC...the good and the very very ugly!

Hello all!! Just got off the Pride (8/10-8/17). Our second stop was HMC, which is my absolute favorite port! We were able to snag Cabana #6 which is the cabana under a big tree! Was wonderful. We had 5 adults and I paid for the 5th person as I'm not a rule breaker but they didn't give us anything in addition to the 4. No extra towels, soda, floats, snorkel gear...nothing. You know that I marched my butt to guest services and got my $50 back. The day was beautiful, and with the FTTF we skipped the line completely when we were ready to go, with all of the nasty looks from those waiting on line.

Now the very very ugly. While it was a calm, relaxing beautiful day a tragedy happened. My 17yo daughter came out of the water saying that someone was hurt at the other end of the beach. The man was in front of Cabana 9 or 10 (I'm guessing) and a crowd had gathered. I am a nurse and ran down to the gathering to see a man (who turns out to be 38) on the sand at the surf line. There were several people standing over him and one gentleman yelling at them. I ran up saying I know CPR as that's what the yelling was about, the staff lifeguards were just standing there. There was a soldier there and as I came up he was yelling at the lifeguards "Come on..ABC's, the basics". As I looked at what was going on CPR was being performed, not correctly, at least not according to the American standards. I'm going to leave it at the fact that the staff had no clue how do do it. I walked away after others had stepped in as to not add to the scene.

As my daughter and I walked away there was a man on the beach VIDEO TAPING the whole thing! My daughter told him he was disgusting and he told her to "just keep walking", it was horrible. She should have just stood in front of him.....let him video that! The lifeguards moved in slow motion even when going for the back board, they walked and didn't know how deep to do the compressions.

It turns out that (according to the talk among the crew and passengers) the man had a seizure in the water and went under. The soldier swam off his sail boat and pulled him out, they began CPR. Unfortunately the gentleman didn't make it, this held departure from HMC for about 2 1/2 hours while the authorities did an investigation. They flew him and his family to Miami from Freeport the next day.

I have to say that as a medical professional I am appalled that the lifeguards don't know basic CPR and that there was NO Defibrillator on the island, I say that as an assumption because it never made it to the man and he lay on the beach having "CPR" for a good 20 minutes. They then drove him away on a golf cart with his wife, leaving his 3 kids on the beach with family.

So, in the end, the beach is beautiful, the food was average but the tragedy is the part that my family won't forget. We will continue to pray for this family and I hope you will too. I plan to write a letter to Carnival explaining how I feel and how horrible this was.

Video taping someone as they are dying.

There are all kinds of sick minds in this world.

Video taping someone as they are dying.

 

There are all kinds of sick minds in this world.

It was horrible and my 17 knew better and this grown man did not! Terrible!!

What a horrible tragedy. I'm just curious as a nurse and medical professional why didn't you offer your services?

How very sad for that family. And disturbing that it wasn't handled much much better. I guess I will know not to rely on the lifeguards.

Thanks for the report!

A terrible tragedy, and handled poorly by the person who felt filming it was somehow appropriate. Your disgust is shared widely.

A couple of lessons from our 30+ years in emergency services (ED nurse and paramedic firefighter). First, you can expect to be filmed any time, anywhere, even if it is very poor taste.

Second, you weren't in America. Other than on the ship, you shouldn't expect to receive American health care, including CPR the way you were trained, nor to have defibrillators everywhere.

On a Caribbean cruise a couple of years ago we had a near drowning and, separately, a full cardiac arrest on excursions we were on. In both cases, medical care was rendered by Americans on the excursions, including DW and myself. The patients survived, at least in the short term ( can't account for the long term prognosis on the two patients). Unfortunately, sometimes luck plays into emergencies a lot more than we like to acknowledge.

What a terrible tragedy. My thoughts and prayers go out to him and his family. I have often wondered how qualified the lifeguards were at HMC. Now I know. :mad:

It was horrible but Carnival did handle relaying the news why we were staying in HMC professionally. He did not share "gory" details just the bare minimum in deference to the family. The video dude will get his karma at some point in time. The previous poster is correct USA medical training cannot be expected outside the USA. Should the life guards have done more, maybe, could other medical trained people (passengers, crew, whoever) done the switch off, again maybe

As Bruce mentioned, the excellent emergency services we enjoy here in the U.S. aren't found everywhere.

What a horrible tragedy. I'm just curious as a nurse and medical professional why didn't you offer your services?

I did. I came up saying that I know CPR, when I assessed that there were others who did too I stepped back. I walked away because I just had a bilateral mastectomy and still don't have the strength in my arms that I used to. Would I have been able to do CPR? Probably. Would it have hurt my recovery? Definitely. Having said that, I went to the scene but when I saw enough people that they didn't need my help, I protected myself. I WOULD HAVE ABSOLUTELY STEPPED IN IF I NEEDED TO!

I know I am going against the grain here, but wanted to inject another point of view. Let's say the lack of adequate CPR skill on the part of the lifeguards was a contributing factor in his death, we will however, never know this. This assumes he could have had a good conversion if proper CPR was performed. Perhaps if the video found it's way to the family, they could have grounds for a suit to prove that inadequate care was given to this gentleman. This also would have the benefit of HMC possibly buying AED's for the island and giving better training to their staff.

I realize some people video tape things for all the wrong reasons, and it sounds like that was the case from the rude comment to your daughter from the guy doing the taping. But something positive could come from it....but probably not.