Tragedy struck once again aboard a cruise ship–this time for Samantha Bromberg, the 33-year-old wife of Karl Bromberg, the famous thoroughbred horse trainer. The mother of four was reported missing from the Carnival Liberty. which was en route from Galveston, Texas, to Cozumel on a four-day cruise. The Liberty has a passenger capacity of nearly 3,000 and a crew of 1,200.
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The crew began searching the ship for Mrs. Bromberg around noon, but later examination of CCTV footage showed that the woman fell overboard Carnival’s Liberty ship around 2:00 A.M. from Deck 10. Unfortunately–and inexplicably–it took the crew another three hours to contact the United States Coast Guard. According to reports, during that delay announcements were repeatedly made asking anyone who might have seen Mrs. Bromberg–or Mrs. Bromberg herself–to contact security, while the crew searched for her cabin by cabin.
That process was still unfolding a full 15 hours from the time she went overboard.
Coast Guard HC-144 Ocean Sentry aircraft crews from Aviation Training Center in Mobile, Alabama, and Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, searched night and day in an area 200 miles southeast of Galveston, Texas. See map at www.google.com/maps/@27.6743155,-96.8294863,6z. The search covered more than 3,000 square miles before it was suspended and Mrs. Bromberg was presumed dead.
Mrs. Bromberg is the fourth person our cruise ship accident law firm is aware of who has fallen overboard from a cruise ship this year–so far. Whatever the reason for this incident, we wish to extend our deepest sympathies to the Bromberg family, and also to encourage Carnival and other cruise lines–like Norwegian, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity, MSC, Disney, Princess, and Holland America–to invest in and deploy the latest in man-overboard technology.
I believe that whenever a passenger is reported missing, the USCG should be alerted immediately–or no more than an hour later–because any delay can exponentially diminish the chances of a successful recovery at sea. Apparently, in this case Carnival did have CCTV footage of the fall, but no reliable mechanism for alerting the crew or bridge that footage had captured a body going overboard. This is simply unacceptable and, with today’s technology, unforgivable.
Our lawyers have fought hard to protect the legal rights of injured cruise ship passengers since 1991. If you have been hurt while on a cruise anywhere in the world, contact us today for a free initial consultation–toll-free at 1-866-597-4529, by email at [email protected], SKYPE, or FACETIME–to speak with an experienced maritime injury attorney about your potential claim. We have nearly 75 years of combined legal experience, and we are ready to help.
