MedEvac and Emergency Port Diversion?

[PenguinLife]

I was wondering how often passengers are taken off ships for medical problems either by boat, helicopter or having the ship divert to a nearby port?

 

Once for us out of 3 Carnival cruises so far.

 

We had it happen on our first Carnival cruise in Feb 2009 as we left Galveston on Conquest (passenger boarded with injuries from a car accident, did not tell anyone until leaving port, went to the doctor, had internal bleeding and was send to shore on a CG helicopter while still in site of land).

 

My mother in law took her first cruise on Conquest last Sept. they diverted to Grand Cayman on the way to Jamaica to offload a sick passenger.

 

What about you, how often do you see such things?

[jhale]

We just returned from the Triumph on Thursday, we had to turn around a few hours out of Galveston for a medical emergency, and left someone in Cozumel that had a stroke onboard. I will say two incidents on one cruise seems a little rare though, as out of 22 cruises this was my first turn around.

 

We also had a reported (but not actual) man overboard, pretty wild trip this one was!

[PROCRUISE]

And we baby-boomers, the largest generation ever, will be filling every ship afloat.

Better have those helicopters/ambulances ready!!!!

[matj2000]

Maybe the cruiselines should come up with some sort of health screen evaluation before people over 65 get on the ship. Weed out the high risk people before hand.

[MrFancypants]

Last March, on the Elation... some 2 1/2 to 3 hours after leaving Cozumel, we turned around and headed back. Ambulance on the pier & everything. We just pushed up against the dock, offloaded the person and their family & away we went. Made up some time & got back to Mobile less than 2 hours late.

 

On the Behind the Fun tour the next day, we asked the captain about it. He said, in fair English, that Cancun was closer, but water too rough for a tender and the Mexican authorities would not send a helicopter as it was not immediately life threatening. So, it was back to Cozumel.

[PROCRUISE]

Maybe the cruiselines should come up with some sort of health screen evaluation before people over 65 get on the ship. Weed out the high risk people before hand.

 

Better grab your flame-retardant suit! :)

[love2relax]

In 32 cruises, I have only seen one evacuation. It was by the Coast Guard. We were on our way back from Ensenada. On our sea day, they diverted closer to San Diego early in the day to offload a passenger. I often wondered if she was okay. What a terrible way to end a vacation.

 

But on the other hand, I can think of no better way than to spend my last few days cruising with my family.

[mommy2eee]

September 2010 on Splendor later in the evening after we left Long Beach

John Heald announced that there was a very ill passanger that the The coast guard would be arriving shortly to air lift the passanger off. They just asked that people not use flash photography as it would distract the pilot.

We heard later they were air lifted to San Fran and was ok.

[mondello]

This was our fourth cruise. We were on a 5 night cruise out of Tampa. Our first port was cancelled because of a medical emergency and we went straight to our second scheduled port, Cozumel, for medical evacuation. We arrived in Cozumel approximately 1:30AM. I saw an ambulance leave the pier with emergency lights flashing and driving at a slow rate of speed. On my way back from Lido deck to my cabin I saw Security and EMTs preparing to bring a body from a cabin around the corner to a waiting elevator. Knowing I had just seen an ambulance leave the pier, I don't know if somebody died or not. I did not stand there gawking during the emergency. We had a full day stop in Cozumel and went to Costa Maya since Grand Cayman was cancelled. The last sea day on our cruise back to Tampa, there was another medical emergency announced and we headed to Key West. It was "full speed ahead" and we increased from 18 to 21 knots, from what I saw on the screen. The medical evacuation was done by helicopter when we were in range of Key West. The Captain made announcements and everybody received a letter explaining the reason for cancelling Grand Cayman and changing our itinerary. My first thought would be to think of all the oldest pax but, illness or injury can happen to any of us.

[pe4all]

Maybe the cruiselines should come up with some sort of health screen evaluation before people over 65 get on the ship. Weed out the high risk people before hand.

Last December my perfectly healthy 19 year old got ill (suspected appendicitis) on the Dream, and we were off-loaded in Belize. Most "emergencies" are just that - unforseen things that happen. No one expects it to happen to them. But in answer to the op's question - we saw a helicopter evac once on Glory, and twice we were re-routed for evacts on other ships. Seems they happen more frequently now than in the past....

[Name Of The Game]

I've been on 7 cruises and never witnessed a med vac or had any ports cancelled, diverted, or the ship had to leave late/early.

[BND]

In 32 cruises, I have only seen one evacuation. It was by the Coast Guard. We were on our way back from Ensenada. On our sea day, they diverted closer to San Diego early in the day to offload a passenger. I often wondered if she was okay. What a terrible way to end a vacation.

 

But on the other hand, I can think of no better way than to spend my last few days cruising with my family.

 

You've only "seen" one, but I bet there's been more. I'd say out of our 10 cruises, someone has been evacuated by helicopter at least 5 times. Unless your cabin is close to the helicopter pad, or you happen to be awake during one and looking outside, you'd never know when someone is removed. We've had tablemates tell us a helicopter came to take someone on several cruises because we never heard a thing. They certainly don't announce those.

 

Our last cruise, just about 3 weeks ago, I heard something around 7 am but didn't think anything of it as we were directly under the pool area,mid ship. Later at dinner our table mates told us that a helicopter had removed someone around that time.

 

We've never been diverted, but our ship (Glory in '08) was late arriving into port on our embarkation day. A crew member had suddenly developed appendicitis and the ship had to divert to San Juan to meet a helicopter. The ship, normally due in around 7 am, came in around 3 pm so we didn't board til around 6 pm and the ship didnt' leave til after 10 pm. They gave us $25/person, but we certainly didn't expect anything.

[treasure4two]

Maybe the cruiselines should come up with some sort of health screen evaluation before people over 65 get on the ship. Weed out the high risk people before hand.

 

Tell your parents and grandparents you want to weed them out because they are over 65 and could possibly have a problem and I think you might

not be able to :psit down for a few days!

[matj2000]

Last December my perfectly healthy 19 year old got ill (suspected appendicitis) on the Dream, and we were off-loaded in Belize. Most "emergencies" are just that - unforseen things that happen. No one expects it to happen to them. But in answer to the op's question - we saw a helicopter evac once on Glory, and twice we were re-routed for evacts on other ships. Seems they happen more frequently now than in the past....

 

 

I was not referring to every illness, their are plenty of unexpected emergencies.

However many are brought on themselves and are the persons have some idea that they are not right.

The Hypertensive, diabetic, smoker, COPDer, with previous history who does not want to take their medications because they are to expesive(but can afford cigarettes).

That is what I am talking about.

 

Diverting an entire ship and missing a Port because Grandma doesn't want to buy Plavix is pretty selfish..

[flasaltwater]

Maybe the cruiselines should come up with some sort of health screen evaluation before people over 65 get on the ship. Weed out the high risk people before hand.

 

Why only people over 65? I have a 15 yr old juvenile Diabetic that will be with us on the Dream in December. Young, looks healthy but there's a lot going on inside. Illness has no age discrimination. Your comment was kind of rude to our older folks. Maybe your a risk, do you know for sure your not?

[matj2000]

Why only people over 65? I have a 15 yr old juvenile Diabetic that will be with us on the Dream in December. Young, looks healthy but there's a lot going on inside. Illness has no age discrimination. Your comment was kind of rude to our older folks. Maybe your a risk, do you know for sure your not?

 

Read my explanation in the post directly above your post.

I believe that explains what I mean.

I am not being "rude" I see people frequently who don't take care of or help themselves until it is to late.

I do not enjoy waking up at 3AM to "fix them"....

[McBizzle]

Just returned from the Carnival Inspiration 10/31-11/5/11. We experienced TWO passenger medical emegencies; "Bright Star" diversion to Cozumel (missed Grand Cayman and totally understand-would want my loved one taken care of in case of medical emergency) and a diversion on our way back to Tampa for a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter medivac 90 miles off the coast of Key West.

This was my 13th cruise-NEVER had anything like this before!

[near the beach]

I have not yet seen an evacuation on any of our cruises. It happens. But it is not a regular thing.

[jannam]

On our last cruise, which was on Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas out of Norfolk, we didn't have a medical evac exactly. But they did speed the ship up to full speed about half way to our first port of San Juan. The hotel director had a heart attack on board and they got us into San Juan as soon as they could and there were ambulances waiting for us on the dock. We got there about 6 hours early. The hotel director made it to San Juan, but we found out later in the cruise that he passed away in San Juan.

 

This was our only experience with any sort of big medical issue on one of our cruises.

[LKYGSR]

I do not enjoy waking up at 3AM to "fix them"....

 

Maybe it's time to change careers?

 

3 cruises so far, no evac, I have seen. I've been on over 500 flights (lifetime) and only diverted once for medical emergency. Boy was that a fast landing!

[aqusis]

On the Dream last week we had a helicopter evacuation of a crew member while at sea, was late at night but we were on the Lido when it happened. Folks were coming up in the PJs and robes to watch and while they asked for no flash photography as not to blind the pilot some stupid woman had a huge camera and was flashing away. When then made an unscheduled stop in Nassau Friday, dinner time, to evacuate a sick passenger. Not sure of the specifics of either, only that the chopper was crew and Nassau was a guest. There was also an ambulance on the Pier at the gangway as soon as we got to St. Maarten on Wednesday morning.

 

We've been on others that stopped, unscheduled, at Freeport to evacuate someone and also sped up to get to Cozumel once and back to port in Florida once for someone who needed medical attention.

 

If you think about it, several thousand passengers, a thousand plus crew, even on the smaller fantasy class ships you've got 3000-4000 people on board; even in small cities on land, with that many people, someone, regardless of health or age, is going to need emergency medical attention in any given week.

[LPut714]

I was wondering how often passengers are taken off ships for medical problems either by boat, helicopter or having the ship divert to a nearby port?

 

Once for us out of 3 Carnival cruises so far.

 

We had it happen on our first Carnival cruise in Feb 2009 as we left Galveston on Conquest (passenger boarded with injuries from a car accident, did not tell anyone until leaving port, went to the doctor, had internal bleeding and was send to shore on a CG helicopter while still in site of land).

 

My mother in law took her first cruise on Conquest last Sept. they diverted to Grand Cayman on the way to Jamaica to offload a sick passenger.

 

What about you, how often do you see such things?

 

I along with some other Carnival passengers ended up doing CPR on a guy in the casino that had a seizure and stopped breathing-fortunately he came back. They took him to the Medical section on the ship and then took him off the ship in Jamaica-they announced it over the loud speaker. Apparently he was going to be checked out and if ok to continue they would return him to the ship.

[ncbeachteacher]

We have been on 9 cruises and had one diverted to Cozumel to send a patient to the hospital. The patient did not look over 65 (in fact, mid 40's).

 

matj2000: Your comments may not necessarily be rude but certainly were insensitive. Yes, a lot of people don't necessarily take the best care of themselves. However, healthy people suffer accidents and other emergencies as well. And yes, even those with chronic illnesses travel and enjoy life. Sounds like you are a bit crispy around the edges for caring for folks who have health issues.

[elcuchio24]

Maybe the cruiselines should come up with some sort of health screen evaluation before people over 65 get on the ship. Weed out the high risk people before hand.

 

HAL would sail with 19 passengers.

[markcruising]

It's probably happened on about half the general cruises I've been on, I had a run of cruising HAL that was pretty big and Regency when they were still around and it happened quite a lot with them, older demographic . When you have a bunch of people trying to eat as much as they can, drink as much as they can and many of them are getting much more sun and being much more active than they usually are , stick 800 - 3000 of those people in one place, I've always been amazes it doesn't happen more often ,