Cruise Ship Law

NASSAU, Bahamas -- Authorities in the Bahamas say a 26-year-old tourist from South Carolina died aboard a Carnival cruise ship over the weekend.

Bahamas police said in a statement Saturday that a man from South Carolina apparently jumped from one floor to another aboard the Carnival Fantasy ship that had docked in Nassau late Friday. He was declared dead at the scene.

Carnival issued a statement saying the guest apparently fell. They said the ship's visit to Freeport on Saturday was canceled due to the investigation.

Officials did not release the man's name or home town.

The ship left Charleston on Wednesday for a five-day Bahamas cruise. It is expected to return to Charleston on Monday.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Investigators in Florida do not suspect foul play in the death of a Massachusetts woman who fell down stairs aboard a cruise ship.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office identified the woman Monday as 47-year-old Barbara Wood of Middleboro, Mass.

The fall happened early Monday aboard the Liberty of the Seas operated by Royal Caribbean Cruises. The ship was just returning to Port Everglades from a four-night cruise that included a stop in Cozumel, Mexico.

Sheriff’s investigators said Wood slipped down the stairs and hit her head at about 1:48 a.m. She had just left the ship’s Catacombs nightclub.

The Broward County medical examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine exactly what caused her death, but it appears accidental, the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

A Royal Caribbean spokeswoman said its medical personnel responded but the woman died before the ship reached port. She said the cruise line was providing support to Wood’s family and friends.

“We will continue to do our very best to assist them,” said spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez.

Navy teams conducting rescue efforts are seen January 21, 2012, near the Costa Concordia cruise ship which ran aground off the west coast of Italy at Giglio island.

Italian media say police divers searching the Costa Concordia cruise liner, which ran aground earlier this month off the Italian island of Giglio, have found a hard disk containing data of the voyage, as another body was pulled from the wreckage, bringing the death toll to 12.

Media reports say the disk retrieved late Saturday may shed light on the role Captain Francesco Schettino played in the disaster. Italian prosecutors are investigating Schettino's role or lack thereof in the rescue operations the night of the disaster

Divers also recovered the body of a woman in a life vest found in the corridor of a submerged section of the 114,000-ton ship.

Rescue efforts are continuing for 20 people still missing. Officials say chances are slim for finding survivors. Authorities say they are also working to remove oil from the vessel to prevent an environmental disaster.

Italy's civil protection agency took command at the site Saturday after the government declared a state of emergency on the small island. The agency's head, Franco Gabrielli, said the environment has already been affected.

"I would like this to be clear: this is not an event where nothing happened," Gabrielli said. "This is a story where a 300-meter-long ship carrying 4,000 people on board, plus all these people needed is in the sea. So the contamination of the environment, gentlemen, has already occurred."

Gabrielli added 2,400 tons of fuel is inside the shipwreck and needs to be removed.

The vessel, which is owned by the U.S.-based Carnival Corporation, ran into a rocky reef, which damaged its hull, and caused the vessel to keel over on its side. Carnival Corporation said it would conduct a comprehensive audit of all of its cruise lines to review safety standards and procedures following the Concordia accident.

Italian rescue workers suspended operations Wednesday after the stricken Costa Concordia cruise ship shifted slightly on the rocks near the Tuscan coast, creating deep concerns about the safety of divers and firefighters searching for the 22 people still missing.

Premier Mario Monti has offered his first comments since the grounding of the cruise ship off Tuscany, saying such a disaster "could and should" have been avoided and assuring that all precautions were being taken to ensure there is no fuel leak.

Monti also thanked the residents of the tiny island of Giglio, which has a wintertime population of about 900, for opening their doors to to the 4,200 cruise ship refugees who washed ashore Friday night when the Costa Concordia grounded and capsized.

In response to a question at a press conference in London, Monti acknowledged Wednesday concern about a potential leak of the 500,000 gallons of fuel aboard the ship. He says authorities had made limiting and preventing leaks a priority, as well as caring for victims.

The $450 million Costa Concordia cruise ship had more than 4,200 passengers and crew on board when it slammed into the reef Friday off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after the captain made an unauthorized maneuver.

The bodies of five adult passengers -- four men and one woman, all wearing life jackets -- were discovered in the wreckage Tuesday, raising the death toll to 11. Their nationalities were not immediately released.

Hungary's foreign ministry says one of the bodies recovered from the wreck of the cruise ship that ran aground off Tuscany was a Hungarian man, a musician working aboard the ship.

Ministry spokesman Jozsef Toth said Wednesday the body of Sandor Feher, a 38-year-old violinist, was found inside the wreck of the Costa Concordia and identified by his mother in the Italian city of Grosetto. He is the first victim officially identified.

Jozsef Balog, a pianist who worked with Feher, told the Blikk newspaper that Feher was wearing a lifejacket when he decided to return to his cabin to pack his violin. Feher was last seen on deck en route to a lifeboat.

According to Balog, Feher helped put lifejackets on several crying children before returning to his cabin.

Instruments attached to the ship detected the movements early Wednesday, forcing the search to be suspended even though firefighters who spent the night searching the area above water could not detect the movement. No additional passengers or crew were found.

"As a precautionary measure, we stopped the operations this morning, in order to verify the data we retrieved from our detectors, and understand if there actually was a movement, and if there has been one, how big this was," said Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini.

Officials said they hope the data from the instruments will reassure them that the ship has resettled, allowing the search to resume. The latest victims were discovered after navy divers exploded holes in the hull of the ship to allow easier access.

In addition to the rescue, much of the focus has been on the cruise ship captain's actions during and after the grounding.

In a dramatic phone conversation released Tuesday, a coast guard official was heard ordering the captain, who had abandoned the ship with his first officers, back on board to oversee the evacuation. But Capt. Francesco Schettino resisted the order, saying it was too dark and the ship was tipping dangerously.

"You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me?" the Coast Guard officer shouted as the captain of the grounded Costa Concordia sat safe in a life raft and frantic passengers struggled to escape after the ship rammed into a reef off the Tuscan coast.

"It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship.' Now I am in charge."

Jailed since the accident, Schettino appeared Tuesday before a judge in Grosseto, where he was questioned for three hours. The judge ordered him held under house arrest, his lawyer told reporters, and Italian media said he had returned to his home near Naples.

Criminal charges including manslaughter and abandoning ship are expected to be filed by prosecutors in coming days. He faces 12 years in prison for the abandoning ship charge alone.

Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated. However, the recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco makes clear he fled before all passengers were off -- and then defied De Falco's repeated orders to go back.

"Listen Schettino," De Falco can be heard shouting in the audio tape. "There are people trapped on board. ... You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?"

But Schettino resisted, saying the ship was listing and he was with his second-in-command in the lifeboat.

"I am here with the rescue boats. I am here. I am not going anywhere. I am here," he said. "I am here to coordinate the rescue."

"What are you coordinating there? Go on board! Coordinate the rescue from aboard the ship. Are you refusing?" came the response.

Schettino said he was not refusing, but he still did not return to the ship, saying at one point: "Do you realize it is dark and here we can't see anything?"

De Falco shouted back: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"

The exchange also indicates that Schettino did not know anyone had died, with De Falco telling him at one point: "There are already bodies now, Schettino."

"How many bodies?" Schettino asks in a nervous tone.

"You are the one who has to tell me how many there are!" De Falco barks in response.

Schettino was finally heard on the tape agreeing to reboard. But the coast guard has said he never went back, and police arrested him on land several hours later.

Italian authorities say 24 passengers and four crew members are missing, including the five bodies found Tuesday. They include two Americans, 13 Germans, six Italians, four French, a Hungarian, an Indian and a Peruvian.

Meanwhile, a Dutch company also said it would be ready to begin operations to pump fuel from the ship to avert a potential environmental disaster. Fire department spokesman Luca Cari said once the all clear is given, the plan is to both resume the search and begin work on pumping the fuel out in tandem.

PORTO SANTO STEFANO, Italy - The first course had just been served in the Costa Concordia's dining room when the wine glasses, forks and plates of cuttlefish and mushrooms smashed to the ground. At the magic show in the theater, the trash cans tipped over and the theater curtains turned on their side. Then the hallways turned upside down, and passengers crawled on bruised knees through the dark. Others jumped alone into the cold Mediterranean Sea.

The terrifying, chaotic escape from the luxury liner was straight out of a scene from "Titanic" for many of the 4,000-plus passengers and crew on the cruise ship, which ran aground off the Italian coast late Friday and flipped on its side with a 160-foot (50-meter) gash in its hull. At least three bodies were recovered. But late Saturday, nearly 24 hours after the capsizing, rescuers had reason to celebrate: a South Korean couple on their honeymoon responded in the door-to-door search of cabins and were brought to safety in good condition, officials said.

Close to 40 others remained unaccounted for.

The Friday the 13th grounding of the Concordia was one of the most dramatic cruise ship accidents in recent memory. It immediately raised a host of questions: Why did it hit a reef so close to the Tuscan island of Giglio? Did a power failure cause the crew to lose control? Did the captain — under investigation on manslaughter allegations — steer it in the wrong direction on purpose? And why did crew members tell passengers they weren't in danger until the boat was listing perilously to the side?

The delay made lifeboat rescue eventually impossible for some of the passengers, some of whom jumped into the sea while others waited to be plucked to safety by helicopters.

"We had to scream at the controllers to release the boats from the side," said Mike van Dijk, from Pretoria, South Africa. "It was a scramble, an absolute scramble."

Van Dijk said the boat he was on — on the upended port side — got stuck along the ship's wall as it came down.

"It was a hell of a sound, the crunching," he said.

Costa Crociera SpA, which is owned by the U.S.-based cruise giant Carnival Corp., defended the actions of its crew and said it was cooperating with the investigation. Carnival Corp. issued a statement expressing sympathy that didn't address the allegations of delayed evacuation.

The captain, Francesco Schettino, was detained for questioning by prosecutors, investigating him for suspected manslaughter, abandoning ship before all others, and causing a shipwreck, state TV and Sky TV said. Prosecutor Francesco Verusio was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying Schettino deliberately chose a sea route that was too close to shore.

Schettino's lawyer, Bruno Leporatti told the agency: "I'd like to say that several hundred people owed their life to the expertise that the commander of the Costa Concordia showed during the emergency."

France said two of the victims were Frenchmen; a Peruvian diplomat identified the third victim as Tomas Alberto Costilla Mendoza, 49, a crewman from Peru. Some 30 people were injured, at least two seriously.

Late Saturday, firefighters who had been searching the Costa Concordia for dozens who remained missing heard distinct shouts, "one in a male voice, other in a female voice" coming from the cruiser liner, Coast guard officer Marcello Fertitta said.

They turned out to be a honeymooning South Korean couple, who were brought out in good condition, Prato fire Cmdr. Vincenzo Bennardo told The Associated Press from the scene.

A risky search by divers of the sunken, water-filled half of the ship for the missing was suspended at darkness Saturday night.

The trapped survivors were found more than 24 hours after the ship ran aground and lurched violently.

Passengers described a scene of frantic confusion. Silverware, plates and glasses crashed down from the dining room's upper floor balcony, children wailed and darkened hallways upended themselves. Panicked passengers slipped on broken glass as the lights went out while crew members insisted nothing serious was wrong.

"Have you seen 'Titanic'? That's exactly what it was," said Valerie Ananias, 31, a schoolteacher from Los Angeles who was traveling with her sister and parents. They all bore dark red bruises on their knees from the desperate crawl they endured along nearly vertical hallways and stairwells, trying to reach rescue boats.

"We were crawling up a hallway, in the dark, with only the light from the life vest strobe flashing," her mother, Georgia Ananias, 61 said. "We could hear plates and dishes crashing, people slamming against walls."

She choked up as she remembered the moment when an Argentine couple handed her their 3-year-old daughter, unable to keep their balance as the ship listed to the side.

"He said,'Take my baby,"' Georgia Ananias said, covering her mouth with her hand. "I grabbed the baby. But then I was being pushed down. I didn't want the baby to fall down the stairs. I gave the baby back. I couldn't hold her."

Whispered her daughter Valerie: "I wonder where they are."

The Ananias family was among the last passengers off the ship, left standing on the upended port side. They were forced to exit from a still-attached lifeboat that became impossible to use once the ship began to tip over; so they climbed a ladder dropped too them off a deck and shimmied down a rope to a waiting rescue vessel.

"We thought we were dying four times," Valerie said, recounting the most terrifying moments in their escape.

CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey spoke with the Lukes family from Girdwood, Alaska, who were on the ship.

"The boat was listing," said Nate Lukes. "There's water coming on board, there's something wrong if it's tipping like that. So we went to the high side. But that was chaotic in the hallways, people with lifejackets on, the power was out."

"People were panicking and yelling and pushing," said Cary Lukes. "They wanted to be the first on the lifeboat. We didn't get on the first lifeboats and then they were gone and there we stood."

Capsized ship survivors tell harrowing stories

A top Costa executive, Gianni Onorato, said Saturday the Concordia's captain had the liner on its regular, weekly route when it struck a reef. Italian coast guard officials said the circumstances were still unclear, but that the ship hit an unknown obstacle.

Despite some early reports that the captain was dining with passengers when his ship crashed into the reef, he was on the bridge, Onorato said.

"The ship was doing what it does 52 times a year, going along the route between Civitavecchia and Savona," a shaken-looking Onorato told reporters on Giglio, a popular vacation isle off Italy's central west coast.

He said the captain was an 11-year Costa veteran and that the cruise line was cooperating with Italian investigators to find out what went wrong.

Malcolm Latarche, editor of maritime magazine IHS Fairplay Solutions, said a loss of power coupled with a failure of backup systems could have caused the crew to lose control.

"I would say power failure caused by harmonic interference and then it can't propel straight or navigate and it hit rocks," Latarche said.

Many passengers complained the crew didn't give them good directions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many to be released.

Several other passengers said crew members told passengers for 45 minutes that there was a simple "technical problem" that had caused the lights to go off.

Seasoned cruisers knew better and went to get their life jackets from their cabins and report to their "muster stations," the emergency stations each passenger is assigned to, they said.

Passengers said they had never participated in an evacuation drill, although one had been scheduled for Saturday. The cruise began on Jan. 7.

Miriam Vitale, a hostess on the cruise liner who disembarked earlier this week in Palermo, told SkyTG24 the ship conducts a drill every 15 days. She said that since passengers on the Concordia embark or disembark every day, some passengers could miss it depending on which day they begin the trip.

Surviving passengers huddled under woolen or aluminum blankets in a middle school on the Italian mainland of Porto Santo Stefano, where passengers were ferried early Saturday from Giglio. Some wore their life preservers, their shoeless feet were covered with aluminum foil.

Christine Hammer, from Bonn, Germany, shivered near the harbor as she waited for a bus to take her somewhere — she didn't know where. She wore her gray cashmere sweater and a silk scarf with a large pair of hiking boats loaned to her by an islander after she lost her shoes in the scramble. Her passport, credit cards and phone were left in her cabin.

Hammer, 65, said the ship lurched to the side as she ate an appetizer of cuttlefish, sauteed mushrooms and salad on her first night aboard her first-ever cruise, a gift to her and her husband, Gert, from her local church where she volunteers.

"We heard a crash. Glasses and plates fell down and we went out of the dining room and we were told it wasn't anything dangerous," she said.

Alan and Laurie Willits from Wingham, Ontario, celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, said they were watching the magic show in the ship's main theater when they felt an initial jolt, as if from a severe steering maneuver. That was followed a few seconds later by a "shudder" that tipped trash cans over.

The subsequent listing of the ship made the theater curtains seem like they were standing on their side.

"And then the magician disappeared," Laurie Willits said.

Miami-based Carnival Corp. issued a brief statement Saturday.

"Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the grounding of the Costa Concordia and especially the loved ones of those who lost their lives. They will remain in our thoughts and prayers in the wake of this tragic event."

Costa Cruises said about 1,000 Italian passengers were onboard, as well as more than 500 Germans, about 160 French and about 1,000 crew members. The State Department said about 126 U.S. citizens were onboard.

Coast guard Cmdr. Francesco Paolillo said the exact circumstances of the accident were still unclear, but that the first alarm aboard went off about 10:30 p.m., about three hours after the Concordia had begun its voyage from the port of Civitavecchia to Savona, in northwestern Italy. No SOS was sent, he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The vessel "hit an obstacle," that tore a 50-meter (160 feet) gash in the side of the ship and started taking on water, Paolillo said. It wasn't clear if the obstacle was a jagged, rocky reef or something else, he said.

The captain, Paolillo said, then tried to steer his ship toward shallow waters, near Giglio's small port, to make evacuation by lifeboat easier.

Five helicopters from the coast guard, navy and air force took turns airlifting survivors still aboard and ferrying them to safety.

Costa Cruises said the Costa Concordia was sailing on a weeklong cruise across the Mediterranean Sea that began Jan. 7 in Savona with stops at Civitavecchia, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo.

The Concordia had a previous accident in Italian waters, ANSA reported. In 2008, when strong winds buffeted Palermo, the cruise ship banged against the Sicilian port's dock, and suffered damage but no one was injured, ANSA said.

Read more:

Earlier Saturday Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia, had told Italian television that the vessel had hit a rocky spur while cruising in waters which, according to the charts, should have been safe.

"As we were navigating at cruise speed, we hit a rocky spur," he told Tgcom24 television station:

"According to the nautical chart, there should have been sufficient water underneath us," he added.

Holidaymakers from Britain, France, Italy and Germany were forced to flee the 1,500-cabin Costa Concordia in lifeboats when it hit a reef less than two hours after leaving port.

Some leapt overboard and swam to shore as the ship started to sink into the waters near the island of Giglio, off the Tuscan coast.

Francesco Paolillo, the coastguard spokesman, said that at least three bodies were retrieved from the sea. Local officials are also reporting that 69 people are still unaccounted for.

By this morning, the ship was lying virtually flat off Giglio's coast, its starboard side submerged in the water.

Pregnant women and young children were among the 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew on board.

Passengers' dinner on Friday night was interrupted by a loud boom at around 8pm and a voice over the loud-speaker system initially claimed that the ship was suffering an electrical failure, before ordering everyone on-board to don life-jackets.

"It was just like something out of the Titanic," one woman said. "You could tell straight away that the ship had hit something and no way was it an electrical fault."

Fabio Costa, who worked in a shop on the stricken cruise ship, said a number of people were jumping into the sea to swim ashore.

Describing the moment the boat began to list, he told the BBC: "All of a sudden we felt the boat hitting something and everything just started to fall, all the glasses broke and everybody started to panic and run.

"We could only feel that the boat had hit something, we had no idea how serious it was until we got out and we looked through the window and we saw the water getting closer and closer.

"Everything happened really, really fast and we saw the water coming in."

Mr Costa said that once the emergency alarm was set off people started to panic and push each other in a bid to get into lifeboats.

"A lot of people were falling down the stairs and were hurt because things fell on them," he added.

The worker said it took the crew a long time to launch the lifeboats as the vessel had listed so much.

He said: "We just saw a huge rock, that was probably where the ship hit, and people were having huge trouble trying to get on the lifeboats. So at that point we didn't know what to do so it took hours for people to get off the ship.

"It was easier for people to jump into the sea because we were on the same level as that water so some people pretty much just decided to swim as they were not able to get on the lifeboats."

Pictures showed a massive gash in the hull more than 150ft long, with a huge rock embedded in the side of the ship towards the stern.

Helicopters airlifted to safety around 50 people who were trapped on board.

The Costa Crociera company, which operates the seven-day Mediterranean cruise, said there were 1,000 Italians on the ships as well as 500 Germans and around 150 French people but could not confirm whether any Britons were among the evacuated.

The Foreign Office, which is sending a team to the scene, said that a few dozen British passengers are believed to have been on board.

A spokesman said: "We are in close contact with the local authorities and are working urgently to identify British nationals involved.

"A consular team from the British Embassy will shortly be in the area to provide consular assistance."

Philip Metcalf from Dorset described how his daughter Rose, a dancer and entertainer on the Costa Concordia, was brought to safety early this morning.

He said: "My phone rang just before three. I had a message from Rose telling me not to worry that she was OK but there had been a fire or something on board and she had been airlifted from near Tuscany.

"She said she had to wait a long time and that she was one of the last ones to be taken of, as she was staff. It sounds a bit like the Titanic. The boat seemed to have taken on water. I'm just so glad she's alright and she's one of the lucky ones."

Miss Metcalf posted a message on Facebook last night, saying: "My name is Rose, its Friday 13th and I'm one of the last survivors on board the sinking cruise liner off the coast of Italy. Pray for us to be rescued."

A local mayor on the island of Giglio said he was trying to find rooms to house the stranded people overnight.

The company said it was not clear what caused the fault and that an investigation was under way.

A spokesman said: "In this moment all our efforts are focused on the completion of the last emergency operations, besides providing assistance to the guests and the crew who were onboard.

"The company will fully co-operate with the relevant authorities in order to determine the causes of what happened."

An explosion heard by some of the passengers on board may have been caused by a phenomenon known as “harmonic interference”, according to Malcolm Latarche, the editor of the global shipping magazine IHS Fairplay Solutions.

Mr Latarche said that the ship was powered by a bank of six diesel-electric engines which effectively worked as an on-board power station designed to supply electricity to all parts of the vessel.

But like power stations on land, the engines are prone to electrical surges and troughs caused by “harmonic interference”.

Mr Latarche added: “From the reports I have seen it seems there was an explosion followed by a blackout which could have been caused by a power surge. There are various back-up systems in place on all ships but they may have failed also."

Mr Latarche said it was possible the cruise ship experienced the same problem that saw the Queen Mary 2 (QM2) lose power in September 2010 as she was approaching Barcelona.

He continued: “Once you have a problem with the electric supply to the ship’s main propulsion motors that could lead to a problem with steering. Once you are in a position where you cannot control a ship's speed and direction you have a problem until you can get those systems back on line. It seems that this may have happened quite close to land, in shallow water. When you can’t steer you are going to run aground and hit rocks at some point.”

The Costa Crociera company said the evacuation of the ship started promptly, but the operation was hindered as the vessel started to list on one side.

Some passengers claimed that the crew had failed to give instructions on how to evacuate the ship. An evacuation drill was scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

Melissa Goduti, 28, an American on board the ship told the Associated Press: "It was so unorganised, our evacuation drill was scheduled for 17:00 (16:00 GMT). We had joked what if something had happened today."

The cruise ship had set off from the Civitavecchia port near Rome earlier on Friday and had been due to visit Palermo, Cagliari, Palma, Barcelona and Marseille.

Italian media reported that the ship had been involved in a previous accident in Italian waters in 2008, when strong winds around Palermo, the Sicilian capital, caused the ship to bang against the port's dock. The ship was reported to have suffered damage but nobody aboard was injured.

Two years ago, a Costa Cruises ship crashed into a dock at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, killing three members of the crew.

The ship, which entered into service in 2006, is described on the firm’s website as “one of the biggest ships in the Costa fleet, a real floating temple of fun that will amaze you.”

Built at a Cost of £372 million, it features four swimming pools, a 64,000 sq ft spa with a gym, sauna, Turkish bath and solarium. There is also a running track, cinema, theatre, art gallery and casino on board.

Prices begin at around £400 but can exceed £1,200 for the first-class cabins.

November 24, 2011 – Lyttelton, NZ

The cruise ship accident cases that we handle here at Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina and Winkleman, P.A. don’t just represent injured passengers. Seamen are often plaintiffs in our cases because they are typically at greater risk of injury as well as wrongful death, as illustrated in this incident.

The Transport Accident Investigation Commission (TAIC) has just completed an investigation launched earlier this year after two crewmen fell from the cruise ship Volendam while carrying out routine maintenance on a lifeboat.

The TAIC has found that it was the combination of poor maintenance and a design flaw that led to the death of a Holland America Line cruise ship worker who plunged into the water and drowned while working on a lifeboat in Lyttelton back in January.
Although one of the crewmen was quickly rescued, the other, seen in the water briefly in what appeared to be a dazed state, soon disappeared.

RIO DE JANEIRO – An American tourist died aboard a cruise liner which docked in the port of Rio Tuesday after Brazilian authorities were told that 86 people on board had been sickened by stomach flu.

The woman died aboard the MS Veendam, a luxury vessel owned by the U.S. cruise company Holland America Line which sailed from Valparaiso, Chile and docked here with 1,800 people on board, most of them foreigners, officials said.

Brazil’s National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa), in a statement sent to AFP, said the woman "died from cardiovascular problems."

But it added that confirmation of the cause of the death "can only be announced after an autopsy."

Anvisa said the ship’s medical service had reported 86 cases of gastro-enteritis during the journey - 79 among the passengers and seven among the crew.

The agency said two other cases have been reported over the past two days, but only one passenger still showed symptoms when its team went aboard in Rio.

The agency made it clear that the Veendam had duly notified Brazilian health authorities about the gastro-enteritis cases and taken all necessary measures to control the outbreak.

The ship stopped over in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay before docking in Rio.

Celebrity Cruises has canceled all parasailing trips in the Caribbean -- indefinitely -- following an accident in St. Thomas that left one passenger dead and another critically injured. Royal Caribbean, Celebrity's sister line, has followed suit.

A 60-year-old passenger sailing on Celebrity Eclipse, who the Virgin Island Daily News identified as Bernice Kraftcheck, 60, died as a result of her fall. Her daughter, Danielle Haese, 34, who was riding in tandem, is still being treated at the Roy L. Schneider Hospital in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas. Celebrity Cruises spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez confirmed that the mother and daughter were participating in a ship-sponsored shore excursion.

According to the Daily News, "squalls and wind gusts in St. Thomas on Tuesday afternoon may have factored into the death." Coast Guard spokesman Ricardo Castrodad told the outlet that the women hit the water at the same time.
At least six government agencies have convened to investigate the matter, and these agencies have also been working in collaboration with the U.S. Coast Guard at the Federal level, said the USVI's Department of Tourism in a statement. The parasail company has voluntarily suspended operations until the completion of the full-compliance inspection.

As of Friday morning, Martinez tells Cruise Critic that the investigation is ongoing, and Royal Caribbean and Celebrity have stopped offering parasailing excursions in the Caribbean pending the outcome. Martinez said the decision to shelve the excursions was being made in an "abundance of caution."

We've reached out to a number of lines that offer parasailing in the Caribbean, including Norwegian Cruise Line, Princess Cruises and Carnival Cruise Lines, about the status of their offerings. The lines have yet to respond to our request for comment.

Driver Jeffrey Tillman and throttleman Robert M Morgan died en route to hospital after they lost control of their 14m (46ft) Big Thunder Marine, which is powered by four 1,200bhp engines.

Superboat International president John Carbonell said the force of the boat hitting the water was ‘powerful’ and ‘crushing’.
He said: ‘He [Tillman] was probably going about 130mph and the boat’s propellers were barely in the water.

‘The boat apparently caught some air and went bow up, straight into the air, came down and went backwards.’ The accident marred the third day of racing at the Key West World Championship in Florida.

Despite the accident and rescue efforts, the race later continued until another accident on the seventh lap.

October 26, 2011. The latest developments in treating patients suffering from TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) continue to pop up in the press. The high number of injured soldiers in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts with brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder has made this a major area of attention for medical research and testing.
The Sept. & Oct. issues of American Legion magazine feature a 2-part series called “The War Within”. The articles feature a variety of treatments and success stories, including:
• Hyperbaric oxygen therapy for TBI when damage to small blood vessels impairs the amount of oxygen getting to the brain’s nervous tissue. Dr. Paul Harch in New Orleans is one medical practitioner mentioned who’s providing a series of these treatments. One patient, Tim Heckler, was reportedly previously treated with anti-depressants that he said made things worse instead of better. Along with his wife and daughter, Heckler says that the hyperbaric oxygen therapy has worked well for him. He goes to New Orleans twice a year now for treatments and is “functioning normally”.

• Intensive cognitive therapy—including rebuilding basic attention, memory and processing skills, followed by training the more complex skills such as personal interactions and socialization. One advocate of this approach is Dr. Wayne Gordon, Professor of Rehabilitation in Medicine & Psychology at New York’s Mt. Sinai School of Medicine. Depending on the TBI patient’s condition, treatment may require daily sessions for 3-6 months.

• Martial arts workouts as a method of providing relief to victims of traumatic brain injury. Marine Lt. Lee Stuckey provides a therapy called Muay Thai (Thai boxing) –a combination of Yoga, meditation and martial arts.

• Intensive physical activity, advocated by former Army Sergeant Todd Vance, like heavy construction or other vigorous work. Vance identifies that this produces not just endorphins, and enkephlins, which are the body's own form of morphine, but also anandamide –one of our stress hormones that in essence is the body's own form of marijuana.

Three sailors have died and eight others are missing after a Turkish trade ship collided with a passenger ferry and sank in the Adriatic, Albanian port authorities said on Thursday.

Sailing under a Maltese flag and loaded with aluminum, the 3,000-ton Reina 1, whose owner and crew were Turkish, sank immediately after the collision with the car ferry Ankara in international waters, said police spokeswoman Ornela Cako. The crash happened at around 2 a.m. (23:00 GMT) on Thursday some 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the Albanian port of Durres.

One body was taken aboard the ferry, while two others have been spotted but not yet recovered due to rough seas, ports head Edmond Doraci told AP by telephone. Two sailors were rescued.

The Reina 1, loaded with aluminum in the Black Sea Russian port of Novorossiysk, was headed to Bar, Montenegro, with a Turkish crew of 10, according to Ahmed Soytürk (54), one of the survivors, speaking from the Durres hospital.

"It took only two minutes for the ship to go down," Soytürk said. The two survivors were in good health, according to hospital personnel in Durres. The rest of the crew was missing and officials were increasingly concerned about their lives.

"We have found only life jackets and the ship's safety boat," the Albanian coastguard's deputy commander, Artur Mecollari, told Reuters by phone. "The collision right in the middle of the ship has been fatal. It sunk in nine minutes."

Albanian officials reported earlier that some Turkish citizens had died in the collision, based on knowledge provided by Atilla, the shipmaster of the Ankara ferry. No injuries were reported on the ferry, which left Durres en route for the Italian port of Bari with 189 passengers and 46 crewmembers. The ferry left the scene with the permission of officials. Police gave no information on the cause of the crash. Meanwhile, a team of experts, including foreign experts, will begin an investigation into the cause of the accident. The Cihan news agency in Tirana reported that Albanian officials recalled the search party in the area, signaling the end of hope for the lives of the missing crewmembers.

"The ship stopped for a moment, then sank in a short time. I saw five crew members on the ship, compressed air came out as we were sinking," Soytürk said from his hospital bed.

"Everything happened suddenly. I hope our friends survive. About three, four crew members must have got out of the ship. I hope they are found," he added.

An Albanian coastguard ship as well as port rescue boats, an Italian vessel of the Guardia di Finanza and an Albanian army helicopter were deployed in the rescue mission.

A mew search mission was launched in the afternoon.

Around midday, the Ankara ferry resumed its journey. The incident will be investigated either by Malta or Turkey because it occurred in international waters.

Albanian Transport Minister Sokol Olldashi said neither of the ships had strayed from their approved route.

"We believe the tragedy came as a result of human error, but this is not yet final," Olldashi told parliament.

A passenger aboard the cruise ship Maasdam is dead as an investigation is underway to find out how he ended up in the Northuberland Strait.

In a statement issued from Seattle, Washington on Tuesday, Holland America Line says it's "thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends during this difficult time.
"On October 4, 2011, shortly after arriving in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, a 75-year-old male guest aboard ms Maasdam was reported missing by his wife at approximately 8:12 a.m. local time," said the statement. "The ship immediately began a ship-wide search and did not locate the guest."
The ship had departed Montreal on Oct. 1 for a seven-day Canada/New England cruise to Boston.

"Per marine regulation and protocol, the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) and local law enforcement authorities were also contacted with all known information and the ship’s earlier course," said the statement from Holland America.

"The Sydney, Nova Scotia, branch of (the Coast Guard) launched a search along the route the ship transited," said the statement. "The body was discovered by a local fisherman and positively identified at 11:00 a.m. local time.

"We continue to work closely with authorities regarding the incident."
The body was brought to shore at Abram-Village.

There was speculation that the Maasdam would spend the night in Charlottetown due to the forecasted storm, but it left port as scheduled around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
An autopsy has been ordered.

"Holland America Line operates a comprehensive program to ensure the safety and security of its guests and ship personnel," concluded the statement. "Flagged in the Netherlands, all ships meet the stringent Dutch, United States, and international standards for safety and security. The safety of our guests and crew is our top priority."

September 26, 2011 – Next Monday, Oct. 3, Brain Injury Radio will celebrate one year of live broadcasts. What began with once-a-month shows in 2010, now airs weekly every Monday evening. Subtitled “The Silent or Hidden Epidemic”, this talk show features the journeys of traumatic brain injury victims as they share some of their experiences.

Last week’s feature, now available via podcast, dealt with suicidal tendencies that TBI survivors face. Tonight’s broadcast is on Complementary Medicine, and will discuss the value of treatments available through acupuncture, restorative yoga and meditation. These weekly shows are broadcast live each Monday at 10 PM Eastern / 7 PM Pacific.

Craig Sicilia, host of Brain Injury Radio, is a facilitator/adviser for six non-profit community organizations that offer brain injury support groups in Washington State. Several projects led by a health & disability workgroup that Craig also chairs have been published in health journals and publications. An instructor for the SEIU/ Training Partnership, Craig has developed a unique and realistic training curriculum called TBI Fundamentals 2012.

According to reports by the Royal Gazette, a passenger of the Carnival Cruise Lines’ Fantasy ship has died while visiting during an island visit in Bermuda, one mile offshore while snorkeling.

The 79-year-old tourist was confirmed to be a U.S. citizen by Meyer Shipping, but his identity has not been disclosed. Police stated the man was taken onshore and attended to by EMTs and pronounced dead while the man was part of a snorkeling tour group and entered an unresponsive state. He was pronounced dead at 12:55pm on Sunday by a physician. The Fantasy had departed from the Port of Charleston in South Carolina, which docked into Bermuda just a day before his death.

Carnival Cruise Lines commented that the family of the victim is being comforted by a Carnival guest care team.

The Fort Lauderdale Injury Board said that although the man was a Carnival passenger, since the incident occurred on a shore side excursion, cruise ship companies will typically deny any liability to such accidents because the shore side excursion operators are recognized by law as independent contractors, making Carnival exempt from any negligence claims.

While there is no foul play suspected in the incident, an autopsy is expected for the Fantasy passenger.

OSLO, Norway (AP) – Two people were killed and at least nine injured on Thursday in a fire on a cruise liner operating on a popular route along Norway's craggy coast, officials said.

Police said they received information that an additional four people were missing, but could not immediately confirm it. Nine people were taken to the hospital, two with serious burns and smoke injuries.

The MS Nordlys, with 262 people on board, was evacuated after it caught fire at 9:20 a.m. before arriving in Alesund, 230 miles northwest of Oslo. More than 100 passengers were evacuated into lifeboats before the ship reached port.

The remaining passengers and some crew left the vessel as smoke was still billowing from the burning ship. Hurtigruten ASA, the Norwegian operator of the ship, said eight of its crew were among those sent to hospital.

Police said they sealed off parts of Alesund because of the heavy smoke.

The MS Nordlys, traveling north from Bergen, is one of several ships that ply the Norwegian coast on the popular 1,500-mile cruise between the southwestern city and Kirkenes, high above the Arctic Circle near the Russian border.

The line carries both tourists eager to see the spectacular western coast and locals from coastal cities and hamlets.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Falls and accidents are common causes for the onset of traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and are so common that now a staggering 1.7 million Americans suffer a TBI each year. A TBI is characteristically caused by a strong blow to the head or a deep head wound. Traumatic brain injuries are responsible for more than 50,000 deaths per year. There’s plenty that you should be aware of when it comes to risks, causes, and actions that pertain to a TBI.

While anyone can be the victim of a forceful head injury, there are age groups that are more susceptible to TBI, such as young children under the age of four, teenagers between 15-19, and senior citizens over age 65. Interestingly, males are typically more prone to TBI than females.

Causes of traumatic injuries can result from a fall from a motorcycle, bicycle, or any other moving vehicle such as an automobile or a boat. While helmets protect individuals from falling from a bike or motorcycle, it’s unlikely a person would have similar protection in a slip and fall incident.

Actions to take following a TBI should be exercised with the utmost care. Seek immediate medical attention, and if you feel you are misdiagnosed you should definitely seek a second opinion. In fact, thousands of cases each year are misdiagnosed and subsequently mistreated. Next, it is imperative to seek out an attorney that has experience handling traumatic brain injury cases. With a great attorney, you will be able to recoup the extensive medical bills that a TBI can accrue. It is essential that you act quickly, as there are statutes of limitations you must follow when you are filing a TBI lawsuit.

OOSTERDAM: Coast Guard thinks he went into the water Friday.

By LISA DEMER
ldemer@adn.com

(07/24/11 16:02:34)

A California man may have gone overboard from the Holland America cruise ship Oosterdam on Friday somewhere between Sitka and Ketchikan, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

Coast Guard search and rescue crews were looking Saturday for the missing passenger, a 20-year-old Fallbrook, Calif., resident.

The man is believed to have disappeared into the water between 1 a.m. and 7 a.m. Friday while the vessel was sailing to Ketchikan, the Coast Guard said.

The Coast Guard command center in Juneau heard from the cruise line at 4 p.m. Friday that the passenger was missing.

"We searched overnight and we're still searching right now," Petty Officer 1st Class David Mosley said Saturday.

Mosley said he didn't have the man's name.

The cruise ship alerted the Coast Guard after its initial search did not find him on board.

Crews on a Jayhawk helicopter from Sitka, the 110-foot Coast Guard cutter Naushon and a 47-foot Coast Guard lifeboat all have been searching, Mosley said.

Family members reported the young man missing when he did not join them exiting the ship in Ketchikan.

Halfway between San Antonio and Austin, TX, a passenger bus carrying about 21 people crashed early on July 1, injuring everyone on board. Conditions ranged from accidental head trauma and broken bones to cuts and bruises. Those with the most severe catastrophic personal injuries included a 4-year-old girl whose leg had to be amputated above the knee and a woman who was on life support due to severe head and neck injuries incurred in the accident.

According to officials, the bus went off the road around 4 am. When the driver overcorrected, the bus rolled and landed on its side.

The family-owned bus line has been in operation since 2007. In the past two years it has been cited by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration for driver fatigue, unsafe driving, and several vehicle maintenance issues.

NY-based Acorda Therapeutics, Inc. has licensed worldwide development and commercialization rights to a proprietary magnesium formula (referred to as AC105) from Medtronic, Inc. Acorda plans to study AC105 as an acute treatment for traumatic neurological conditions, including spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI).

According to Ron Cohen, M.D., Acorda's President and CEO, "Acorda has significant experience in the area of spinal cord injury and other neurological injury research. We are excited to leverage that expertise to continue the clinical development of AC105, potentially providing a new therapy to people who suffer debilitating central nervous system injuries."

With this move, Acorda will have exclusive development and commercialization rights in all fields (SCI, TBI and stroke) for certain formulations of the licensed compound. For other formulations, Acorda secured rights exclusive to medical indications in which it’s interested, including SCI, TBI, stroke and all other traumatic and ischemic central nervous system indications. Medtronic retains non-exclusive development rights for specific conditions that include pain and musculoskeletal indications.

Acorda's Chief Scientific Officer, Andrew R. Blight, Ph.D., commented on the significance of this arrangement: "Spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries often result in severe, lifelong disability. This places an enormous burden on the person suffering the injury, their caregivers and the healthcare system. The situation is compounded because most spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries occur in young people, leading to long-term care and quality of life issues. Since there are currently no FDA-approved therapies for either SCI or TBI, we are excited to continue research on AC105 to determine its value in improving outcomes for people who suffer these very serious injuries."

Damage from accidental Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) has been in the news a lot this week, but in a good way. The results from two separate and unrelated studies were featured in the press on June 28, bringing attention to the growing number of people either personally suffering from TBI or living with loved ones who do.

In an attempt to better understand TBI patients’ behavior—typically classified as “egocentric/self-centered and insensitive to the needs of others”—researchers are finding evidence that these patients have lost emotional empathy due to their traumatic brain injuries.
Although the details aren’t known, it appears that those with TBI have diminished capacity to understand and/or recognize emotions in other people based on their reduced response to anger during the study. This helps explain the difficulties with social interaction that people with TBI typically face.

The research was conducted by the University of New South Wales in Sydney. The study appeared in “Cortex” and can be ordered from Elsevier.

The second study that’s been receiving a lot of buzz this week was conducted by psychologists at Wayne State University in Detroit. It focused on the impact religion could have on a person who’s rehabilitating from a traumatic brain injury condition.

Researcher Brigid Waldron-Perrine, Ph.D., noted that "Individuals cope with the tools available to them…for those with limited means and few alternatives, religion can take on great power as a psychosocial resource."

Through interviews with 88 people who had been diagnosed with TBI, along with neuropsychological tests, the researchers learned that patients who feel a connection to a higher power had better results from their rehab, both emotionally and physically.

A 29 year-old quadriplegic named Danny Miller has now targeted a 6,000-mile motorcycle ride—from Murrieta, California to Kodiak, Alaska and back—as his next challenge. Following a 2004 traffic accident, when his car was side-swiped and rolled down a 280 ft. embankment, Miller became a quadriplegic. Once an aspiring FBI agent, Miller was paralyzed from the neck down, ending his chances for a law enforcement career.

"I want to do something to show people not to give up," Miller said today from the special three-wheel motorcycle designed for this trip. Thanks to years of strenuous rehab with Project Walk, Miller said he’s regained movement in his arms and left hand, and can now stand and take some assisted steps with a walker.

His family is joining him to create a documentary of this adventure that Miller plans to share with others who have been paralyzed from accidental spinal cord and neck injuries. They envision this as the first in a series of documentaries featuring Danny in other activities like kayaking and white-water rafting.

You can follow Danny’s progress on his Facebook page: “Danny - North to Alaska”.

British safety officials today are warning cruise lines and other companies that operate ships with large electric motors to check their machinery in the wake of a little-publicized explosion earlier this year on Cunard Line's Queen Mary 2.

In a safety bulletin issued today, the UK's Maritime Accident Investigation Branch says the Sept. 23 explosion near one of the Queen Mary 2's main electric switchboard rooms occurred after the failure of a capacitor. Leaking oil sprayed onto high voltage bars, causing a "major arc flash event," the agency says.

No one was injured in the explosion, but it was large enough to blow the steel door to the area with the capacitor out of its frame and resulted in extensive damage to surrounding electrical panels, according to the report.

In addition, "the blast...also caused serious damage to an adjoining steel door into the main switchboard room, the stiffeners on the bulkhead of the compartment were buckled, and the steel cover plate on a cross-flooding duct was blown out into the main switchboard room," the report says. "Fortunately there were no personnel in the vicinity."

The explosion caused a blackout on the ship that lasted nearly half an hour. The vessel was on its way to Barcelona at the time.

The agency says preliminary findings of an investigation carried out by the manufacturer of the capacitor indicates the capacitor had deteriorated gradually, and a monitoring device "did not give any indication of the fault developing." A second capacitor in the same area also showed signs of being on the verge of failure, the agency adds.

A more detailed investigation of the cause of the explosion is underway. USA TODAY was unable to reach a Cunard spokesperson for comment.

The agency's findings were first reported today by USA TODAY sister paper the Daily Echo of Southampton, England and UK cruise site ilovecruises.co.uk.

Originally Posted at: travel.usatoday.com

Budd Tucker worked on his father's commercial boats from the age of 12 to 23, fishing for shrimp, red fish and halibut.

The Newfoundlander spent months at a time on the Atlantic Ocean at depths up to 1,200 fathoms above the ocean floor off the coast of Greenland. It was a grueling and dangerous life, said Tucker, now 32, and one that by proxy helped set him on his current course.

"It was the typical, 'I have no idea what I am going to do,' but I was going to college because I wasn't going to be a fisherman and die on the open sea," Tucker said.

While tales from his youth stay with him, his career path couldn't be more different. Tucker, a University of Iowa assistant professor of ophthalmology, has dedicated his career to stem cell research with a focus on curing blindness.

In the classroom, Tucker found had an aptitude for science; it was intellectually stimulating and he could help people, he said.

Tucker received bachelor's and doctoral degrees in colleges in Newfoundland and completed a post doctoral fellowship at Harvard University Medical School.

Tucker initially worked on spinal cord regeneration, but redirected his research toward blindness, in part, because his high school sweetheart and now spouse, Gillian, suffers from a congenital eye disease.

He was recruited by a number of schools before joining the ranks in UI's Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences this school year.

Shortly after he arrived at UI, the National Institutes of Health selected him for the 2010 NIH Director's New Innovator Award. He is one of 52 researchers in the U.S. to receive the award, which comes with $1.5 million in funding for his research over five years.

The NIH describes his research as "combining state-of-the-art patient-specific stem cell and biodegradable tissue engineering technologies for the treatment of blinding retinal degenerative diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration."

Tucker works with induced pluripotent stem cells, which are different from embryonic stem cells and don't carry the same ethical issues, he said. However, he is supportive of embryonic stem cell research, he said.

"I think he is the most promising young stem cell scientist in the field of vision research in the United States," said Ed Stone, professor of ophthalmology who helped recruit Tucker.

It's a feather in UI's cap that it lured a scholar of Tucker's caliber, but it also speaks to the stature of UI's eye program that Tucker wanted to be part of it, Stone said.

Tucker hadn't considered UI initially, but with a young family, which includes his wife and young son, the contrast between fast-paced city living and a more family-friendly setting like Iowa took root.

"In Boston, you couldn't have a house and an acre of land unless you were a multi-millionaire," he said. "When we visited here, there wasn't a place we liked as much as Iowa City."

A comparison of Iowa and Newfoundland might be a bit of stretch with Iowa lacking the minus-65 degree days and polar bears, but the pace and quality of life is similar, he said.

"It's as close to being like Newfoundland without the ocean," he said.

One of Tucker's early mentors was Karen Mearow, a professor and associate dean in the Division of BioMedical Sciences at Memorial University in St. John's Newfoundland. Tucker worked in her lab from 2001 to 2006 when he left for Harvard.

Tucker came in green, she said, with no skills in sciences, but he quickly excelled. He had a workman's mentality of getting things done, she said.

"When he has a problem in front of him, he finds a way to get on with it. He gets things done," Mearow said.

Mearow said Tucker was spurred on because his research was something few other people were doing. Mearow calls Tucker her best student in her 20 years teaching, and said by the time he left Memorial she considered him a colleague.

"I was very fortunate to have him," she said.

Tucker is now driven by finding a cure.

"I would not be doing this if there were not a cure in sight," Tucker said. "I really believe with this technology, we can make people see again."

Both men were relatively young when they were sidelined by a traumatic brain injury. Yet actor Gary Coleman succumbed last week at the age of 42, and rocker Bret Michaels, 47, is back on the scene, fresh off his "Celebrity Apprentice" win and looking like a bandanna-clad poster child for robust good health.

How can a cerebral hemorrhage have such different consequences? It depends upon the type of hemorrhage, its size, what area of the brain is affected and the overall health of the victim, experts say.

Both an intracranial hemorrhage (which occurs inside the brain tissue) or a subarachnoid hemorrhage (which bleeds into the lining around the brain) have the potential to kill. Bleeds in certain areas of the brain (such as the ones that control heart rate and breathing) are much more likely to be fatal than, say, a hemorrhage into a region that controls speech or vision.

"It’s like real estate - location, location, location," says Dr. Toby Gropen, chairman of the department of neurology at Long Island College Hospital. "And the size of the hemorrhage makes a difference, too."

The brain stem, which is about the size of a thumb, is an unfortunate place to suffer a brain hemorrhage, says Dr. Jeffrey Frank, neurology professor and director of neurocritical stroke care at the University of Chicago. "A substantial stroke in the brain stem could be catastrophic, while people who suffer a stroke in the language area would face disability but it would not be as devastating," he explains.

Dr. Randolph Marshall, professor of neurology at Columbia University School of Medicine and chief of the stroke division at New York Presbyterian Hospital, says Coleman's multiple health problems most likely played a significant role in his outcome after the brain injury. "He had other sources of inflammation relating to his kidney disease," Marshall says. "This can make it much more difficult to recover."

Recurrent strokes tend to be more devastating than the first stroke, says Gropen, which is why it is so important for stroke victims to pay attention to symptoms and get treatment. And, Gropen adds, there are certain risk factors for hemorrhagic strokes that people can actually control. Smoking, high blood pressure, obesity and heavy alcohol usage all can be contributing factors, he says. Drug use, especially when it includes cocaine, also ups the risk of stroke.

"We know that the treatment of risk factors and their elimination can have a profound effect on eliminating the risk," Gropen says.