http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4662345.html


March 26, 2007, 3:32PM
Man who fell off of ship will continue cruise
Woman will disembark in Mexico to receive medical tests



GALVESTON — A day after two passengers who fell 50 to 60 feet overboard from a cruise ship were rescued, the man continued with the cruise while the woman was to disembark today in Mexico, a spokeswoman for Princess Cruises said.

The two triggered a four-hour rescue effort early Sunday after accidentally falling overboard from a balcony into the Gulf of Mexico.

The two have asked that the circumstances be kept private, said Julie Benson, a Princess Cruises spokeswoman said today. She said that they were the only two involved in the accident.

The 22-year-old man has been released from the medical center on the ship while the 20-year-old woman plans to have some follow-up testing on land, Benson said.

She said that the two, who have requested that no personal information be released about them, had only minor injuries. She said that they were not married, but did not know how long they had known each other.

The ship, the Grand Princess, was about 150 miles off the coast of Galveston when friends notified the crew around 1:30 a.m. that the two had fallen, Benson said.

The captain turned the ship around, and the crew used high-powered spotlights to scan the water and launched rescue boats to find them. One passenger was pulled into a rescue boat around 5:30 a.m., and the other was found about 30 minutes later, according to a statement by the cruise line. A Coast Guard helicopter crew, called in to help, spotted the male passenger.

"Just falling 50 feet, you can do some serious damage and basically knock the wind out of you," said Coast Guard swimmer Micah Franklin, who participated in the rescue. "If you survive that part, then you've got, depending on your swimming ability, how long are you going to be able to survive in the seas."

The waves were swelling up to 6 feet, and the wind was gusting to up to 30 mph, Franklin told NBC's "Today" show today. He was he was impressed the two survived.

Benson said the railing around the cabin balcony is at least 4 feet high and meets all standard safety requirements.

She said that the man, who was wearing no clothes when he was rescued, apparently took off his clothes in the water as a survival tactic.

The ship was on its way to Costa Maya on Mexico's coastline, Benson said. The Grand Princess was carrying 2,783 passengers on a seven-day tour of the western Caribbean.

good times...

this sounds like two people having an extramarital relationship were fucking on the balcony railing to me.

That's two stories in a month about this. http://www.oregonlive.com/newsflash/nat ... ornational

What the fuck, people? Drink a LITTLE less on your cruise!!!

Dude, that's the anathema of tropical vacations. You're fighting an uphill battle, my friend.

i hate cruises. i can get no satisfaction in staying on a big lump of steel in the middle of nowhere.

I think if this was actually the result of being falling down drunk, they wouldn't have survived 5 hours in the water in the middle of the night.

The man speaks the truth. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often really.

Again. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/07/ ... 78473.html

This one jumped to avoid getting in trouble for playing around in the lifeboats.

This is actually true. When i was a lifeguard the first they tuaght us was, if you ever find yourself taken away by the current, your best bet for survival is to remove your bathing suit. The science behind it is that your genitals act as a sort of homing device that lets boaters in the vicinity know where you are, what state you are in, and how long it will to get to you. The guy was obviously one really smart, and well trained lifeguard.

are you serious? a homing device?

Most people don't know the power the penis and the vagina hold.

I was a lifeguard instructor for four years, and I've never heard the homing beacon/dick strategy. I'm going to have to call bullshit or sarcasm on that!

Test it out, it works, its science.

Explain to me how this works, in layman's terms?

Love your work Marsh