Cruise Ship Accidents Bring Lawsuits
What To Do If You’ve Been Involved In One

Mar 16, 2010

Doesn’t a Caribbean cruise sound extremely relaxing and fun? Can’t you imagine what it is like on a cruise ship? Your every need is taken care of. You have plenty of food on the boat that you can get to at any time of the day or night, and you have drinks handy in your room. You even have a porter who is there to take care of your room by cleaning it up and by keeping everything neat and orderly for you. But accidents can happen anywhere, and at any time, and it should come at no surprise that occasionally cruise ship accidents happen, too. If you’re involved in one, what do you do?

Records

The first thing that you need to do is to get treatment. If you’re injured on the cruise ship, make sure that you see the medical staff before you do anything else. This staff will help you by providing medical care. Their level of care will be roughly the same as an emergency room care can be, but they do not have the type of equipment to be able to treat serious injuries, so if you have a serious injury you may find that the ship’s doctor will radio for a helicopter to come to pick you up and to take you to the nearest hospital. If you’re only moderately injured, you can likely be treated by the medical officer on the ship.
Once you’ve been treated, make sure you take records about what has happened. It is in the ships best interest, if they were at fault for your injury, to make it difficult to access your records, so it is a good idea to take your own records. Write down, or have a friend or family member write down, everything that is going on with dates and times, and to take photos of the injury if there is anything to see.

Lawyer

Once you’ve been successfully treated, it is time to seek out a lawyer. You may want to look for a lawyer who has had a bit of experience in working with people who are suing cruise lines before, as they will likely have a better idea of how to go about it and how to work with the cruise line to get you the settlement that you are entitled to. During the process, you may want to look into advance funding from a company like Lawsuit Hotline to help.
If you’re injured on a cruise ship, make sure that you seek out treatment and that you take records of everything that is done during your treatment. This will help you should you decide to get a lawyer and to sue the cruise line. And remember: there is likely a statute of limitations about when you can sue the line, so make sure you get a lawyer as soon as you can so that the proceedings can start as quickly as possible.