Photo: Ingo Wagner/picture-alliance/dpa/AP
Several passengers on aNorwegian cruisewere injured after the ship ran into bad weather and tilted sideways.
The Norwegian Escape, which departed fromNew York Cityon Sunday March 3 for a 7-night cruise bound for Florida and the Bahamas, reportedly encountered a gust of wind of 100 knots (115 mph) as it was sailing to its first stop in Port Canaveral. The wind “resulted in the ship heeling to the port side,” a spokesperson for Norwegian Cruise Lines tells PEOPLE. The nautical term “heeling” means to lean to one side, and “port” indicates the left side of the boat.
Passengers who were on board the ship began todocument the scary experience on social media, and posted pictures of debris in the ship’s interior alongside stories of their journey.
Twitter user @GVelez22 wrote, “The scariest s—t just happened on this cruise. Chairs, tables, glass, people went flying to one side of the ship.”
“It was a VERY SCARY NIGHT on the Norwegian Escape,” a passenger named Samantha Fosterwrote on Facebook. “The boat tilted almost completely on its side.”
She went on to detail that the life rafts on the deck below her and her friend’s stateroom on the 16th floor were “completely submerged” and that everything in their room kept “falling and sliding.”
“Bri and I were waiting, frozen in fear, holding the wall so we wouldn’t roll out of bed, for the water to hit our balcony,” she wrote in part. “I have never been so scared in my whole life.”
Foster claims that after “what seemed like an eternity,” the ship began to tilt back to its upright position, and the two women ran to her parents’ room on the other side of the boat.
“Everyone was out of their rooms. Holding each other, crying, smoking,” she continued. “Many spent the night in common areas with jackets on ready to evacuate!”
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Her Facebook post also detailed that plates and glassware were allegedly smashed all over the ship’s floor, and that a lotto machine fell on one woman, which resulted in “blood everywhere.”
However, she wrote, despite the injuries, “everyone is ok.”
“People were hurt and scared but for the most part everything is good today,” she said.
Another passenger, Junmar Baena Beltrano, whoshared photosof the ship after the tilt, wrote that he “thought it was the end of our lives,” and that the entire time the ship was tipping, he “thought to myself ‘uli naku'” which he said translates to “want to go home.”
Passenger Patrick Lapointeclaimed on Facebookthat the ship had tilted to nearly a 45-degree angle.
“For the ones who saw the news about the extreme situation that happened last night on the ship we’re on, Norwegian Escape, we’re fine. Were really freaked out, but now fine,” she wrote. “There’s no exaggeration on statements and pictures posted online. Ship was like at 45 degrees angle…freaked out everyone…but they said it was normal lol.”
One man on Twitter seemed understanding that the ship’s tilt was out of the crew’s control, but asked if they would be giving passengers a discount.
“Honestly, @CruiseNorwegian, the gust of wind that threw all of the shattered glass all over my bed and floor is all on mother nature, but where my pro-rated premium plus discount for all the bottled water I was going to drink tonight?” passenger AJ Black wrote on Twitter.
When PEOPLE asked if the cruise line would be providing compensation for passengers, a Norwegian spokesperson had no comment.
The representative did confirm that several passengers and crew were injured during the incident, but the ship’s itinerary will remain unchanged.
source: people.com
