A Florida authorities report revealed that a five-year-old girl fell off a Disney Dream cruise ship in June while posing for a photo on a porthole railing at her mother’s request. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office labeled the incident as “avoidable” in a report filed a day after the child fell overboard and her father jumped in to rescue her as the ship was returning from the Bahamas to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale.
The state attorney’s report described the mother’s actions in orchestrating the photo as “arguably negligent and irresponsible” but concluded that they did not warrant criminal charges. The incident gained global attention as both the child and father were saved by cruise ship staff, with footage captured by passengers and shared on social media.
Security footage established a timeline showing the family walking on deck four when the mother gestured to the porthole railing, leading the child to sit on it, lose balance, and fall around 49 feet into the water. The father jumped in shortly after to rescue her. The ship’s rescue boat successfully retrieved both individuals from the water within 20 minutes, with the child suffering from hypothermia and the father sustaining a fractured spine.
The father, unidentified to protect the child’s privacy, reported in his police interview from the hospital that his wife had paused to take a photo of their daughter on the railing before the incident. While the police deemed the fall as “avoidable,” the state attorney’s office opted not to pursue charges, citing that the mother’s actions, though negligent, did not meet the threshold for criminal negligence.
Incidents of passengers falling overboard are rare, with statistics from the Cruise Lines International Association showing that between 2009 and 2019, only 212 out of millions of passengers and crew members experienced such accidents, representing a minute fraction. The report also highlighted that the majority of these incidents resulted from intentional or reckless behavior.