According to local time on April 10, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship "Ocean Freedom" that was about to return had an accident, and a young American man, Levion Parker, jumped into the sea from the 11th floor of the cruise ship deck only a few hours before arriving at the destination.
It has been almost 6 days since the incident happened, and the young man's whereabouts are still unknown.
It is reported that the cruise ship set sail from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, for a four-day Caribbean cruise, and will eventually return to Fort Lauderdale. The Broward County Sheriff's Office said on the 10th that Levion Parker, from Northport, Florida, has been missing since jumping into the sea in front of his younger brother and father on April 4.
Levion (with long curly hair), 20, was on a cruise with his parents and 18-year-old brother Seth when his father, Francel Parker, a business owner, was invited to take the family on a vacation at sea.
According to fellow boat passenger Bryan Sims in an interview, it happened around 3:30 a.m. when Levine's father was furious when he saw his two sons who had just come out of the hot tub.
"I guess his father yelled at him because he was drunk," Brian said, "and he said to his father, 'I'll fix this now.'" Then he jumped out the window in front of all of us. ”
It is unclear how Levien got "drunk" because the minimum drinking age on the cruise ship sailing from North America to the Caribbean was 21, the report said.
Brian, who was closer to Levien on the boat, said his Parker brother had been chatting in the hot tub, "We talked about different things, and he told me he worked on yachts and other types of boats in Florida. At about 3:30 a.m. or 3:45 a.m., the brothers left, and I thought they had gone to bed. ”
Brian said he himself left around 4 o'clock when there was no one in the tub and "as I approached the stern on the pool deck, I noticed his brother and father coming out of the sliding door near the elevator. They came in my direction. ”
"They were right in front of me as we passed by, and he dodged away from his father and said, 'I'll help you with this now,' and that's when he jumped out the window. "He was about 2 or 3 meters away from me when he jumped out of the window next to the ice cream machine. ”
"Because it was night, the boat was moving fast, we were screaming, and his father kept shouting to stop the boat. But as far as I know, the boat probably continued to travel for about 1.6 kilometers before stopping. "A lot of the crew was on top, and after we turned around and returned to my hypothetical area, they began to launch smaller vessels to search. ”
When the 335-meter-tall cruise ship came to a screeching halt, the crew reportedly began to search for the missing passengers. It wasn't until the next morning that the captain made the announcement, and about 4,000 passengers didn't know there had been a tragedy.
According to other passengers, after learning the news, the atmosphere on board fell into a gloom, "it was really a sad morning". In addition, some passengers said that Levien was a quiet and polite young man, "not an alcoholic at all".
According to the latest information, the search operation of the US Coast Guard has been halted, and the current situation of the Parker family has not been revealed, and it is reported that they have hired a lawyer and plan to make a statement in the future.
Statistics show that over the past 30 years, more than 400 passengers are known to have fallen overboard from cruise ships, with only a 28% chance of survival.
It is also reported that Royal Caribbean Cruises, as well as the vast majority of U.S. cruise lines, have not yet installed an automatic man-overboard system, as required by the Cruise Ship Security and Safety Act of 2010. It is reported that the system uses state-of-the-art motion detection, video and infrared technology, as well as radar, to instantly detect that someone has crossed the guardrail of a cruise ship.