Kay Longstaff was lucky. Most people who fall off ships are never seen again | Gwyn Topham
An average of one person a month is lost to the sea from cruise ships. This rescue is little short of miraculous
Even when life is a cruise, we are just a guard rail away from a rude awakening. For British passenger Kay Longstaff, the fall from the back of the Norwegian Star cruise ship has had an unexpectedly happy ending: rescued after 10 hours’ floating in the comparatively warm and balmy Adriatic sea. The circumstances of her initial plunge have yet to be established, and while theories have ascribed yoga and levels of subcutaneous body fat as factors in her survival, most who go over the edge are not so lucky as to be plucked from the sea by the Croatian coastguard.
The annals of those who have disappeared overboard – most thoroughly documented by the excellent Cruise Junkie database – show a rate of at least one recorded fall per month from cruise ships over recent decades. The incidence of mortality aboard is far higher from the natural passing of an often ageing clientele – every stately ship, many carrying thousands of passengers, has a morgue. And the intermittent outbreaks of norovirus, liable to sweep through a cruise ship buffet like wildfire in a heatwave if unchecked, will pose a greater danger for many.
Related: Lost at sea: the man who vanished for 14 months
Related: Air on board cruise ships ‘is twice as bad as at Piccadilly Circus’
Source: Guardian Transport
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