Man Critically Injured After Falling on Carnival Cruise Ship: Coast Guard

A stock photo of a Carnival ship. AP Photo/Bruce Smith, file

A man was left in critical condition after he fell on a cruise ship off the coast of Louisiana on Tuesday.

A 23-year-old man fell about 16 feet on the ship, prompting a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter rescue crew to arrive on the scene near Venice, Louisiana, KATC reported.

The man was taken from the Carnival Valor to a New Orleans hospital in critical condition, said the Coast Guard in a news release.

“Coast Guard Sector New Orleans watchstanders received a request at 1:14 a.m. for the medevac,” for a man with “multiple significant injuries after he fell aboard,” the Coast Guard stated.

An Air Station New Orleans MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew conducts a hoist of a 23-year-old man aboard the cruise ship, Carnival Valor, who fell approximately 16 feet. The patient was transferred to New Orleans University Hospital in critical condition on Oct. 8, 2019. U.S. Coast Guard

“A 23-year-old male guest sailing on Carnival Valor was injured and, after being evaluated by the ship’s medical team, it was determined that he required further evaluation and treatment,” Carnival said in a statement about the matter. “He was airlifted off the ship via helicopter and transferred to a shoreside medical facility. We can confirm that the guest did not fall in the water but rather was injured on deck.”

It is not clear why the man fell during the cruise.

The patient was transferred to New Orleans University Hospital in critical condition on Oct. 8, 2019. U.S. Coast Guard

The ship was about 65 miles from the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico, NOLA reported.

The report said that the man was on board the Carnival Valor, which can carry almost 3,000 passengers and 1,200 crew members.

No other details about the incident were released.

According to Cruisecrtic, “Some 91 people have died on cruise ships that arrived in Fort Lauderdale between 2014 and 2017.”

Norwegian Epic,in a stock photo, (Brian Burnell/Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)])

“While no cruise line would give Cruise Critic an exact number of deaths per year, one cruise line insider who asked to remain anonymous said, up to three people die per week on cruises worldwide, particularly on lines that typically carry older passengers,” the website wrote.

Most cruise ship deaths are due to natural causes, the site says, with most being the result of heart attacks.

“But even when death is not entirely unexpected, such as when someone with advanced-staged cancer chooses to cruise, it’s shocking to family and friends, whether they’re on the cruise ship or on land,” it also says.