Another Carnival lawsuit

[gone_cruisin]

I'm confused. Are you saying the licensed Dr on-board has limited training, and shouldn't be expected to do a procedure I learned in 8th grade?

I'm not trying to be snarky but they have a Dr.

There is no reason this should have gone on as long as it did.

 

I was quoting a poster that stated the airlines have someone trained to handle medical emergencies. Which is not true.

 

I cannot attest to how much training is required for the cruiselines....only the airlines.

 

I would hope they have at least one RN and MD on board.

[divingmedic]

I was quoting a poster that stated the airlines have someone trained to handle medical emergencies. Which is not true.

 

I cannot attest to how much training is required for the cruiselines....only the airlines.

 

I would hope they have at least one RN and MD on board.

CPR is not medical training? How do the airlines have such great cardiac arrest save rates with no medical training?

[andr3a]

DBF and I were on this cruise, neither of us recalls any noticeable rescue chopper or anything...crazy!

[divingmedic]

DBF and I were on this cruise, neither of us recalls any noticeable rescue chopper or anything...crazy!

Cuz they were never called. Passenger died before they could call them out.

[gone_cruisin]

CPR is not medical training? How do the airlines have such great cardiac arrest save rates with no medical training?

 

Basic CPR. And to answer your question about caridiac arrest....it's because the FAA has started allowing the defibs on board.

 

But again - if you think a Flight Attendant is going to be able to any life saving training above and beyond CPR, you would be wrong.

 

If that lady had severed her arm in the air, the response most likely would have been for the Flight Attendant to bring towels, tell the surrounding passengers to apply pressure and then notifed the Captain who would have then decided to land at the nearest suitable airport.

[divingmedic]

Basic CPR. And to answer your question about caridiac arrest....it's because the FAA has started allowing the defibs on board.

 

But again - if you think a Flight Attendant is going to be able to any life saving training above and beyond CPR, you would be wrong.

 

If that lady had severed her arm in the air, the response most likely would have been for the Flight Attendant to bring towels, tell the surrounding passengers to apply pressure and then notifed the Captain who would have then decided to land at the nearest suitable airport.

And the proper response on the ship should have been to send the RN first and not non medically trained persons. Also the should have had a proper way to transport the patient down to the infirmary for the MD that is on board to do what he could. Instead time was wasted and a person died as the result of it.

[divingmedic]

Basic CPR. And to answer your question about caridiac arrest....it's because the FAA has started allowing the defibs on board.

 

But again - if you think a Flight Attendant is going to be able to any life saving training above and beyond CPR, you would be wrong.

 

If that lady had severed her arm in the air, the response most likely would have been for the Flight Attendant to bring towels, tell the surrounding passengers to apply pressure and then notifed the Captain who would have then decided to land at the nearest suitable airport.

Also over the last 10 years I probably have had close to 20 or so flight attendant in the Emt class that I teach.

[gone_cruisin]

And the proper response on the ship should have been to send the RN first and not non medically trained persons. Also the should have had a proper way to transport the patient down to the infirmary for the MD that is on board to do what he could. Instead time was wasted and a person died as the result of it.

 

Obviously we are just going to have agree to disagree here.

[divingmedic]

Obviously we are just going to have agree to disagree here.

So injured passengers should just left to their own devices then??

[jonbgd]

RN first and not non medically trained persons. .

I definatly agree

Another thing about this Is Im not sure what was reported to the Infirmary on the phone. I know on Nocs alot of MDs will sleep and let the RN's/Corpsman/Medics do the triage unless there is a life threatening situation or a code coming thru the door. So if it was reported wrong who knows??

We had one MD that wouldnt see a non emergent Pt till he had lab results:cool:

[divingmedic]

I definatly agree

Another thing about this Is Im not sure what was reported to the Infirmary on the phone. I know on Nocs alot of MDs will sleep and let the RN's/Corpsman/Medics do the triage unless there is a life threatening situation or a code coming thru the door. So if it was reported wrong who knows??

We had one MD that wouldnt see a non emergent Pt till he had lab results:cool:

 

Yup. During bare base deployments us medics triage and get the doc if needed.

[spleenstomper]

Has anyone investigated if this was a attack by the boyfriend that he tried to cover up as an accident?

 

The reason I ask is ... why would anyone need to wait for a nurse to stop the bleeding?

 

Why didn't he?

 

Honestly, I thought of this myself.... And suicide, but i imagine the gash was in an awkward place to be self-inflicted.

 

Someone is falling down drunk.... They can be very irrational and dramatic.

 

It was a fleeting thought.. I assume it was an accident as stated.

[richfret]

"Ladies and gentlement, I have reviewed the 6 pages of confusing and conflicting posts and after much deliberation and analysis hereby declare in favor of the Plantiff. Although the Plantiff is guilty of poor judgement, the Defendant, the Carnival corporation, certainly could have handled the situation in a much better fashion. Therefore, I award the Plantiff the grand total of $100.00 along with court costs. This case is hereby closed."

 

Now the only difference in real life will be that the $100.00 will be multi millions.

[keishashadow]

I haven't been on a ship yet, so please forgive me for assuming that there is only a general emergency number and not a seperate one for security type emergencies and a one for medical emergencies.

 

So, someone answers the phone and gets told "we need help in cabin 844" (or whatever) and then the person hangs up. It is not unreasonable to send two crew down to check it out. These two "not medically trained " crew probably are trained in first aid, CPR, and how to use an AED. They get there and notice all the blood and a towel wrapped around the wound. They know unwrapping it could make matters worse. The only thing they can do is get more qualified people on the scene and be ready to help out if things get worse. I don't fault them, or their dispatch, without more information.

quite likely scenario imo. Terrible loss of life, feel for the kids, how traumatizing that had to be for them, especially if they were onboard. :(

 

A couple of things ring oddly in the article to me though:

 

Pitboss only permitted 1 drink at a time of the 4 rounds ordered, seemed as though he was trying to 'pace her' in some fashion and the family acknowledged they were concerned but didn't intervene in removing her from the situation.

 

Poor woman felt sick and headed back to her room alone. I cannot imagine letting family or friend stagger back to cabin alone if that drunk/ill. Whether they realized her true state or didn't want to tell her (as an adult) what to do, she still shouldn't have been overserved.

 

I'd think lay people often panic in this sort of situation when it's their loved one, understandably just not thinking straight, even if they know basic first aid. I'm not saying the family is at fault, or that CCL did everything by the book, but glad that i'm not the one to decide this lawsuit.

[tracyanns]

I think what we are all forgetting is that this was at 2:00 am in the morning and the infirmary is not a hospital and is not staffed 24 hours. Calls are probably forwarded to guest services and they sent crew to see what was going on...they then call for nurse...who was probably asleep and had to get up and dressed and grab a kit and get to a cabin in 10 minutes...not too bad actually. So, she does what she can...everyone mentions she should have made a tourniquet, well maybe she doesn't know how or maybe only a DR can do that...they are not US doctors nor are they trained in the US, so maybe what they can and can't do is different than an EMT or a nurse in the US. Now we are saying the doctor never bothered...maybe he didn't or maybe there is a reason, maybe he took. Few hours yo have. Good time and they couldn't find him, maybe he himself was intoxicated and that would have been an even larger liability, what we do know is these doctors are not cruise line employees and neither are the nurses, they are independent contractors...and do you know why? Because it limits the liability of the cruise line.

 

We also have to look at the fact that there is no OR on a cruise ship, they are there for minor injuries and infections and to try to stabilize a patient until either arriving in port or being flown off, and most importantly, the cruise lines are not required to provide care to the passengers, the reason the infirmary is there is because it is mandatory to provide medical are to the staff so they open it up to passengers between certain hours to accommodate minor illnesses, which this was not.

 

We had an emergency code on the PA one night while dining and they actually requested if there was a doctor onboard if they could go to the steakhouse...our friend is a surgeon and we all looked at him...he shook his head no and continued eating. He later inquired about it during the cruise and they said he died of a heart attack...said it happens a lot, that is why there is a small morgue onboard...an infirmary is not a hospital and doctors are not surgeons. There would have been more risk on CCL if they had tried to sew her up and without an operating room and its sterilization and she got an infection and Fiedler from that then they would have been solely responsible.

 

I think if CCL thought they were at fault they would have settled before this made the news to keep it quiet. Either they are going to fight it or they tried to settle and it wasn't enough...

 

This story is like a jigsaw puzzle...we can guess and blame and speculate all we want but without all of the info we just don't know. My doctor friend did say if she almost severed an artery and had blood pouring out of her, the nurse must have done something right or she probably would have died sooner. And they do not have blood for passengers onboard so if she had lost that much they couldn't have pumped any back into her...my friend in the coast guard told me that.

[combatboots2jimmychoos]

You know what I find odd? In the midst of all this, someone kept time on how long it took for a nurse and how long it took to get to the infirmary? I DOUBT IT. I doubt her mom was standing there with a stop watch. What seems like a long time may have been a lot less. Was the phone call to request emergency assistance recorded like with 911 calls? Where there pictures of this emergency while in the stateroom? I'm still trying to logically put together how shattered glass goes into an arm so deep that it severs an artery. If I drop my glass and it breaks into pieces the pieces would be laying flat on the ground when I fall on top of them- not enough force to go through my arm. Was the glass only partially shattered then? Was there an altercation in the room?

If the "canoe" didn't fit through the elevator doors, why didn't they just lay her on the elevator floor and go DOWN?

This story is very incomplete to know how negligent Carnival could be found. I'd like to be in this court room to here all evidence! I'd like to see a picture of this Canoe, along with testimonies from all employees who were present.

And yes, the passenger has fault in this. She had illegal drugs in her system and a substantial amount of alcohol which caused the incident. . If she didn't die from blood loss, could she have died from alcohol poisoning?

[whitecap]

I want to start by saying that I feel sorry for the family of this woman on their loss.

Regarding the event all I can say is blah blah blah! Can anyone spell "personal responsibility"? This woman, described as not a heavy drinker, was .155 blood alcohol level mixed with marijuana. Did she not have a responsibility to maintain her own physical wellbeing? How about the family members who were there with her watching as she drank all that alcohol and apparently at some point inhaled a controlled substance. An adult goes on a cruise, big boat open water far from land, decides to drink, even though she's described as not a "heavy drinker" until she's intoxicated, mixes the alcohol with a controlled substance and the family wants to hold the cruise line responsible for her death. Since we don't know the FACTS about the crews response to the emergency call, I will wait for an official investigation to see whether or not the crew could have done something differently. The facts that we do know, by the autopsy listed in the suit, the woman made some very poor decisions that resulted in her death. Had she not put herself in that position the rest would be mute.

[RuthlessBoss]

Correct, one does not know what was said or told to initiate the response. But what is in the article was that Carnival was not prepared to transport this person down to the infirmary for further medical treatment. You can not transport a person in shock in a wheelchair, not enough blood to get to the brain for the person to function as in breath on their own.

Where in the article does it say she was in shock? The article said she was given smelling salts even though she was aware of all that was going on. That's likely why a wheelchair was there. We don't know why she fell out of it. Was it weakness from bloodloss or her drunken state? I don't know and no one knows, but getting a neaby wheelchair was the initial fastest form of transport.

[mamaskittles]

Where in the article does it say she was in shock? The article said she was given smelling salts even though she was aware of all that was going on. That's likely why a wheelchair was there. We don't know why she fell out of it. Was it weakness from bloodloss or her drunken state? I don't know and no one knows, but getting a neaby wheelchair was the initial fastest form of transport.

Unless you are trained to know better.

[kayhold]

Just to be clear- not one person has said Carnival was at fault for the accident.

The time it took for her to get (no) proper care is the issue.

[SarahQ]

You know what I find odd? In the midst of all this, someone kept time on how long it took for a nurse and how long it took to get to the infirmary? I DOUBT IT. I doubt her mom was standing there with a stop watch. What seems like a long time may have been a lot less.

 

Also important to take into consideration - again, we're only getting one side of the story.

 

It's been proven time and again that in emergency/trauma situations, eye-witnesses can be highly unreliable, especially when it comes to estimation of time passing.

 

I'm certainly not blaming her family if that's the case - obviously they would be traumatized - but we have no idea how they even came up with the timeline.

[Tuffy1129]

In the 1980's you could blow .18 and not be guilty of DWI. .15 on a cruise ship where you aren't required to drive anywhere is actually not that high. If you bought an Alcohawk Breathalyzer machine and tested most passengers I think you would find that the waking up in the morning BAC is over .15. I'm far more concerned that no one on the ship knew how to respond to the emergency. The floors in the bathrooms are slippery and you can fall in there regardless of consumption. I wouldn't be filing suit based on them "allowing her" to get drunk - I would be focusing on after she was injured they weren't able to respond in time to help her. The same thing could have happened to anyone's completely sober/drug free child who slipped getting out of the shower, knocking a glass to the floor and cutting themselves.

[RuthlessBoss]

Unless you are trained to know better.

Know what? She was alert to what was going on.

[kayhold]

Also important to take into consideration - again, we're only getting one side of the story.

 

It's been proven time and again that in emergency/trauma situations, eye-witnesses can be highly unreliable, especially when it comes to estimation of time passing.

 

I'm certainly not blaming her family if that's the case - obviously they would be traumatized - but we have no idea how they even came up with the timeline.

 

I can't imagine it would be too hard to get Carnivals records with phone call times, etc. Any decent lawyer would know the times were right before filing.

[whitecap]

In the 1980's you could blow .18 and not be guilty of DWI. .15 on a cruise ship where you aren't required to drive anywhere is actually not that high. If you bought an Alcohawk Breathalyzer machine and tested most passengers I think you would find that the waking up in the morning BAC is over .15. I'm far more concerned that no one on the ship knew how to respond to the emergency. The floors in the bathrooms are slippery and you can fall in there regardless of consumption. I wouldn't be filing suit based on them "allowing her" to get drunk - I would be focusing on after she was injured they weren't able to respond in time to help her. The same thing could have happened to anyone's completely sober/drug free child who slipped getting out of the shower, knocking a glass to the floor and cutting themselves.

 

I see what you are saying, .08 is the recognize percent as intoxicated/impaired, but because on a cruise ship .15 is the norm you aren't impaired even though you are at twice the limit because you aren't driving! And what is your take on the use of controlled substances? Its ok as long as you don't shoot up or smoke it in front of children? My guess is you have never been the victim as a result of the actions of a drunk or otherwise intoxicated person or investigated a vehicle crash involving a impaired driver. As in my earlier post:

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY! Don't blame others because your negligence had bad results.