Details Emerge of Cruise Passenger’s Nightmare Injury From Shattered Waterslide
Royal Caribbean is facing a lawsuit after the stomach-turning incident aboard the world’s largest cruise ship, Icon of the Seas.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A man who was injured going down a waterslide on the largest cruise ship in the world has reportedly hired an attorney and plans to sue the cruise line.
Alex Perez, the lawyer hired by the passenger, said his client was “sliced” by a shard of broken acrylic glass after the bottom gave out at a corner of the “Frightening Bolt” waterslide aboard Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas.
Video footage of the shattered slide, obtained by Local 10 News, shows water gushing through the hole in the glass after the man suffered his nightmare injuries. A second person is also reported to have suffered a minor scrape as a result of the fault.
Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world, is pictured at the Costa Maya Cruise Port in Mexico in February 2024.
Paola Chiomante/Reuters
“As I understand it, it was cracked,” fellow passenger Lillian Destefano told the outlet. “Like, the gentleman that went before him just got cut slightly, and then when the other gentleman went down, it sliced him, but he passed it, and then the glass fell and the water gushed.”
“No one fell through, thank god,” she added.
Another passenger said the grim incident had put her off ever going down another slide. “I think I saw the gentleman who was injured from afar,” the woman said. “I will not be going on slides like that again.”
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Royal Caribbean confirmed to Local 10 News in a statement that at least one adult passenger had sustained injuries as a result of the incident.
“Our team provided medical care to an adult guest when acrylic glass broke off a water slide as the guest passed through the slide,” the company said. “The guest is being treated for his injuries. The water slide is closed for the remainder of the sailing pending an investigation.”
The Icon of the Seas returned to the Port of Miami on Saturday and has since embarked on another seven-day Caribbean cruise.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the cruise line for comment on the incident and the injured passenger’s reported threats of legal action.
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