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Bad Luck Ails Two Cruises: Carnival Pride Crashes Into Gangway, Outbreak Sickens 260

By Shelley Hazen
Published on: 00:48 PST, May 9, 2016

When the Carnival Pride eased into a cruise terminal in Baltimore, Maryland, Sunday morning, Nicole Newsome heard a “hard thump” but didn’t think too much of it.

“We just thought that’s what happens when you dock,” the cruiser told the Baltimore Sun.

She was on the Carnival Pride for an eight-day trip to the Bahamas with a group of friends. Of course, what Newsome and her fellow passengers felt wasn’t a normal part of the docking process.

According to CBS Local, the front of the Carnival Pride hit the bridge, or gangway, used by passengers to get on and off the ship. As a result of the collision, the gangway collapsed and came crashing down on three parked pickup trucks, crushing them.

“Heard it like a crash and felt it and then heard something crashing from outside as well,” said passenger Debbie Squires.

Thankfully, no one was hurt. No one was using the gangway when the Pride smashed into it. The trucks were empty as well and belonged to Carnival employees.

Esther Smith, who was traveling on the Pride with her husband, Eric, for her 50th birthday, brushed off the incident, saying “accidents happen.”

Her husband added, “The fact that no one got hurt changed the whole mood of it.”

Passenger Carol Francis wasn’t too worried either, after all, “It wasn’t like we were in the middle of the ocean.”

“I was just so thankful that no one was hurt, because someone could have easily got killed,” said Michele Church, who was in the same group as Newsome and watched the aftermath of the crash from her room on the ninth floor.

“That was one of my first concerns,” passenger Angela Stefanelli told Fox Baltimore. “Everybody wants to see the pictures, but, of course, you always want to make sure that there’s nobody hurt because the vehicles, there were just two or three that were just smashed.”

Passengers disembarked using another, pier-level exit. The Sun noted that the temporary entrance onto the ship is now the crew gangway.

The Pride also didn’t sustain serious damage; Port of Baltimore spokesman Richard Scher said the operation of their ship” wasn’t “compromised at all.” Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer De La Cruz confirmed that the Pride would take off for another cruise as planned on Sunday.

The damage was concentrated to a small deck platform on the Pride’s starboard side. So far, no one knows what caused the crash. The U.S. Coast Guard and Carnival Pride are both investigating the incident.

“We’re eager — as much as Carnival and the Coast Guard to find out exactly what happened and make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Scher said.

Sunday’s crash is the second unpleasant incident to strike a cruise line in the past week. The Balmoral, a British cruise line, has been tainted by an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness caused by norovirus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 27 percent of the ship’s passengers have gotten sick since it disembarked on April 16, Fox News reported.

The Balmoral is on a month-long cruise that began in England and is sailing up the East Coast of the U.S., the Portland Press Herald added. The CDC confirmed that 252 of 919 passengers and eight of 502 crew members have come down with nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.

On Sunday, only six passengers were still sick and quarantined. The ship next stops in Saint John, New Brunswick.

Like unexpected collisions with a gangway, stomach flu on cruise ships is actually quite rare. Nine outbreaks have been reported this year, and between 2008 and 2014, 129,678 of the 74 million cruisers fell ill with a stomach virus of some sort. Only one in 10 were caused by norovirus.

[Image via PHOTOSVIT/Shutterstock]

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