A woman whose sister is on the line for an $8,000 medical bill after shattering her ankle on a cruise ship’s dance floor is warning other passengers to buy medical insurance, according to reporting from The Daily Mail.
The sisters were traveling from Queensland to New South Wales on a P&O cruise ship, a British cruise line, when one of them dislocated and fractured her ankle. The two were told the injured sister would not be covered by Medicare even though they were traveling domestically and were in Australian waters at the time of the incident.
“Don’t play Russian roulette with your health and safety, get insurance,” one sister wrote in a social media post to warn other passengers. “We don’t leave home without it.”
The two purchased travel insurance costing them $60, according to the article.
The injuries require surgery and the injured woman will be taken to a hospital once the ship docks in Circular Quay.
Leesfield & Partners
With its landmark office in Miami-Dade County, just 17 minutes from Port Miami, Leesfield & Partners has seen thousands of clients with injuries on cruise ships – and the subsequent fallout from being barred evacuation, even with insurance.
From gruesome slips and falls to medical malpractice at the hands of inadequate cruise ship doctors, Leesfield & Partners attorneys have been there for the injured and their grieving families to aggressively represent them against a corporation seeking to escape liability.
One such case handled by the firm involved a family that had booked a cruise to celebrate a milestone anniversary. Though evacuation insurance was purchased, the cruise line refused to evacuate one family member who was having a heart attack in port. Instead of getting him off the ship and to a hospital, the ship left with him still on board and sailed to Puerto Rico. The man spent 18 hours on the cruise where he later died.
He could have been saved had crewmembers taken the necessary steps to evacuate him. Due to this decision, this family lost a beloved husband, father and grandfather. A multi-million recovery for negligent infliction of emotional stress was secured by Leesfield & Partners attorneys for the family.
An elderly woman suffering from a hemorrhagic stroke who was evacuated from her cruise for medical treatment died due to the negligence of that cruise line. The woman was disembarked in Freeport, Bahamas, to be transported to a hospital in Broward County, Florida. She died waiting to be transferred because the cruise line failed to ensure the airport was open when she arrived.
Leesfield & Partners also represented a Canadian couple traveling throughout North America as missionaries. The couple was sailing from Los Angeles to the Mexican Pacific Coast when the husband experienced a medical emergency and required a life-saving blood transfusion and needed to be evacuated. The cruise line was ill-equipped to treat the husband with an improper medical facility. The couple was allowed to board a dinghy to shore and was taken to a third-world infirmary. Once there, the man needed frozen plasma but had to wait for it to be thawed with a hand-held fan. The man died before it could be thawed.
Attorneys with the firm secured a multi-million dollar settlement for the man’s family.
Another Leesfield & Partner client slipped while on a major cruise line and displaced her kneecap, resulting in the woman requiring surgery and the installation of metal hardware. The woman had been traveling on the cruise line when she walked across a dance floor where another passenger had spilled a drink earlier. Because the dance floor was poorly lit to create the feel of being in a nightclub, the woman could not see and fell hard to the floor. Crewmembers were aware of the spill and had been asked to clean it but did not. Neither did they put up signs warning passengers about the wet floor.
Due to the crewmember’s negligence, the woman suffered permanent and severe injuries. Justin B. Shapiro, a Partner and Trial Lawyer with Leesfield & Partners, was able to secure a $500,000 award for the woman in that case.
If you or a person you know was injured on a cruise ship, or a loved one died while on a cruise ship, don’t wait. Contact one of our experienced Cruise Ship personal injury attorneys at 800-836-6400 for a free consultation.