Experts reveal how cruise ships deal with dead…
Royal Caribbean is under fire for its handling of passenger Michael Virgil, who died onboard after being served 33 drinks at one of the Navigator Of The Seas bars in December 2024, per a wrongful death lawsuit filed by his household.
Now, the household’s lawyer is accusing cruiseliner workers of stuffing the 35-year-old California father’s physique in a fridge before persevering with on their voyage, ignoring pleas from his fiancée, Connie Aguilar, to return to port in Long Beach, California.
The morgue areas are off limits to passengers. Lukassek – stock.adobe.com
In mild of the traumatic incident, many viewers had been questioning what occurs to seafarers when they cross away while at sea.
How do ships store the deceased at sea?
According to insider sources, cruise ships are outfitted with hidden morgues for the deceased that are off limits to common passengers.
These maritime mortuaries often current as refrigerated rooms with cabinets that are sometimes situated on the ships’ decrease decks close to storage areas for food, alcohol and miscellaneous ship provides, the Point Guys explained.
The deceased are saved in secret refrigerated rooms at sea. tiero – stock.adobe.com
In fact, skilled cruise ship singer Dara Tucker made a macabre disclosure on TikTok in 2024, warning passengers needs to be cautious when a cruise liner throws a free ice cream get together.
She claimed that this is often a crimson flag that “more people have died on the ship than they have room for in the morgue,” forcing them to store corpses in the freezer — as was the alleged case with Virgil.
The leisure voyage vessels also come geared up with physique luggage and, ought to a death happen, they’re ready to maintain a physique — or our bodies — on board until the ship reaches a port large enough for preparations to be made to return the deceased home.
What to do when somebody dies on the high sea
Storing our bodies is just not almost as difficult as dealing with the legal headwinds concerned in a death at sea, which is communicated aboard via cryptic code phrases to keep away from passenger panic.
Florida-based lawyer Keith Brais, whose firm specializes in accidents and incidents at sea, says that cruise firms in normal usually are not obligated to release the findings of their investigation into passenger deaths.
This permits the pleasure boating purveyors to downplay or obfuscate something that would make them appear liable in order to solid themselves in a good mild.
In normal, cruise firms attempt and downplay deaths to solid themselves in a good mild, legal specialists declare. Mariusz Blach – stock.adobe.com
He said that, as a outcome, cruiseliners are seemingly to attribute the deaths to “natural causes” even if the “totality of the circumstances at hand suggests otherwise.”
That being said, cruiseliners are required to monitor crimes aboard their ships, according to the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act handed in 2010.
How did Michael Virgil die?
Brais famous that alcohol is concerned in the bulk of the deaths, as was the case with Virgil, who had a blood-alcohol stage of 0.182 to 0.186% — or more than twice the legal driving restrict — according to an post-mortem report obtained by the Daily Mail.
Per the National Library of Medicine, a BAC at or over 0.40% is taken into account probably deadly. However, deaths can and do happen at decrease ranges due to other problems, including aspiration and blocked airways, respiratory arrest and low oxygen, cardiac arrhythmia, combining with prescribed drugs, and underlying circumstances, such as dehydration and malnourishment, which can make the physique more susceptible to the results of alcohol.
Virgil had reportedly been served almost three dozen drinks as half of the Royal Caribbean’s bottomless alcoholic drinks bundle, according to the wrongful death swimsuit.
However, it’s not clear how many of those drinks he truly consumed.
Then, the intoxicated passenger reportedly went on a rampage after he couldn’t discover his room, allegedly attacking and threatening to kill crew members and passengers.
Michael Virgil and his fiancée, Connie Aguilar, had been touring with their 7-year-old autistic son. Connie Aguilar
Virgil, who was touring with Aguilar and their 7-year-old son, was subsequently tackled by crewmembers.
According to the wrongful death swimsuit, they reportedly stood on his physique with their full weight, administered an injection of the sedative Haloperidol, and sprayed Virgil with a number of cans of pepper spray.
The passenger was reportedly held down for three minutes before he was cuffed and taken to the ship’s medical heart, still respiration, per an post-mortem report by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Officials famous that while Virgil’s blood-alcohol ranges weren’t deadly on their own, they did inhibit his capacity to reply to misery during restraint.”
The seafarer’s death was formally attributed to “cardiopulmonary arrest” and “ruled a homicide,” the lawsuit alleges.
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