WOMAN FALLS FROM SHIP

Posted on 11/20/2015

Last week a cruise ship hosting an electronic dance party set out on a five day sailing through the Gulf of Mexico. On the second day a woman reportedly fell into the Yucatan Channel from a stateroom. In spite of rescue efforts 24-year old Kaylyn Rose Sommer, the young mother was not found. 

Sommer was part of The Mad Decent Party Cruise billed as a four-day party of electronic dance music aboard the Norwegian Pearl, sailing from 11 to 15 November from Miami to Cozumel. Around 6:15 pm on Thursday night Sommer of Charleston, South Carolina, reportedly fell from a height of 80 feet while the cruise ship was travelling at 16 knots (roughly 25 miles per hour) 120 miles southwest of Havana, Cuba. On Friday a statement from Mad Decent said, "We are deeply saddened by the news that one of our guests on our current cruise went overboard on November 12. The Coast Guard is now leading all search and rescue efforts and the ship is en route back to Miami."

The Coast Guard used a plane, patrol boats, and drift-modelling programmes to assist in the search, which covered a 22x22 nautical mile area. The Cuban Coast Guard also deployed a ship to help. On Saturday, after 18 hours with no sign of the woman, the US Coast Guard suspended its search for Sommer. "We are all sons and daughters, and many of our responders have young children themselves. Suspending search efforts is always a painful decision, particularly when it involves a young mother," said Capt. Todd Coggeshall, incident management chief at the Coast Guard's Seventh District.

When asked by Rolling Stone about the search, Gabe Somma, a lieutenant commander in the Coast Guard replied, "The harsh reality here is you have a young woman that went overboard from a very high level off a cruise ship without a life jacket," Somma said. "Every search case is evaluated on a case-by-case basis. You've got to consider her age, her health, her state when she went in the water, the height when she fell in the water … I can't say that's un-survivable, but it's a dire situation." The FBI is investigating the tragedy.

Sommer is the second passenger reported to have gone overboard from a cruise ship within a week. On November 6, Bernardo Elbaz, 31, fell from Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas near the Turks and Caicos Islands. Elbaz was not found, despite an intensive search by the US Coast Guard. Sommer leaves behind a six-year old daughter and a husband who she married on a Mad Decent Party cruise just the year before.

"Both the ship and charter company teams provided support to the family and all impacted guests during this difficult time.” Passengers on the cruise that never made it to the Cozumel destination received their refunds this week. Having paid $1,000 for the five-day cruise, they were reimbursed with $57.47 the cost of an excursion plus port taxes. They did only miss one excursion, but that was the intended destination. No doubt the people from Mad Decent Party Cruise will hear more from Mad Dissent Party cruisers.