2. Death by Alcohol Poisoning Aboard the Carnival Miracle
Lots of people treat a vacation on the high seas as a booze cruise, but most of them don’t die from over-drinking. Sadly, 18-year-old high school senior Seth Younes wasn’t so lucky. He was on an eight-day spring break Caribbean cruise with his family on the Carnival Miracle back in February 2013 when he imbibed so much that he was found unresponsive in his cabin by his 14-year-old brother. The autopsy confirmed his death was due to accidental acute alcohol poisoning. Who’s to blame in a situation like this, the young man, the parents or the cruise line? Bar tabs are a big profit center for the cruise industry, and there is a party culture on board that seems to encourage excessive drinking. Daily cocktail specials, 2-for-1 deals, all-you-can-drink packages and the like are heavily promoted, and lots of passengers in holiday mode tend to overindulge without much monitoring from the crew. ID checking is often lax, and even underage passengers seem to find ways to get their hands on booze via other passengers. The “Fun Ship” denied responsibility, claiming that none of their personnel served alcohol to the boy, and that’s as far as the investigation went. Perhaps this tragedy can serve as a cautionary tale for parents not to let their guards down on vacations like this as teenagers often find ways to get sloshed on cruise ships, just like on land.
