The Seattle Times reports that the husband of a cruise passenger filed a wrongful death suit Holland America Line in Seattle after his wife was killed during a cruise sponsored snorkeling excursion.
The incident occurred when passenger Diana Mechling had just entered the water from the excursion boat off the coast of Belize to start snorkeling. The operator put the vessel in reverse, and the propeller struck Ms. Mechling. According to the newspaper, her husband, Michael Mechling, was present on the snorkeling vessel during the incident. Ms. Mechling died in a local hospital.
The Belize-based operator of the snorkeling excursion, Cruise Solutions Belize Ltd., was also named in the lawsuit.
We reported on this tragedy last February shortly after the incident occurred. You can read the account here.
A local newspaper in Belize, 7 News Belize, reported in February that Port Authority Belize concluded its investigation into matter and found that the Captain of the boat Reef Rocket, Martine Manuel Pariente was negligent. The Port Authority has decided to charge the cruise operator with negligently causing loss of life, and has suspended his captain’s license.
The passenger’s family can now expect the Belize excursion company to deny that it is subject to jurisdiction in the United States, as it has done in other cases where cruise passengers are injured during cruise excursions.