Royal Caribbean cruise ship passengers faced a horrifying tragedy this summer after a child died. Chloe Wiegand, 18-months-old, was killed after being falling 150ft from the docked Freedom of the Sea ship in Puerto Rico on 7 July 2019. Her grandfather Salvatore Anello had been holding her when she fell onto the concrete below.
Anello is being held on $80,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on 20 November.
Wiegand was on the Royal Caribbean ship with her parents, Alan and Kimberly Schultz Weigand, and grandparents when tragedy struck.
Freedom of the Seas was ending a seven-day southern Caribbean cruise of Antigua, St Lucia and Barbados at the time of the girl’s death.
A Royal Caribbean spokesperson told Express.co.uk at the time: “We are deeply saddened by [the] tragic incident, and our hearts go out to the family.”
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The family have blamed the cruise line for leaving the window open, through which Wiegnad fell.
The window was located near a children’s play area and Wiegand had allegedly tried to bang on the glass as she was held by her grandfather when she fell.
Mother Kimberly Wiegand spoke to NBC’s Today Show in July about how she thought the ship should have been safer.
“There are a million things that could’ve been done to make that safer,” the “devastated” mum said.
She called the open window “a tremendous safety hazard that cost our child her life” and alleged that the cruise company told her it had been open for “ventilation.”
The family’s attorney, Michael Winkleman, previously said: “I do think that there is going to be blame and significant blame on the cruise line.”
“Why in the world would you leave a window open in an entire glass wall full of windows in a kids area?”
Wiegand also recalled the moment she realised her daughter was dead: “I didn’t know that she went out a window,” she said.
“And I just kept saying, ‘Take me to my baby. Where’s my baby?’ I didn’t even notice a window.
“I ran over there, and I looked over, and it wasn’t water down there, it was concrete. To lose our baby this way is just unfathomable.”
A cruise ship passenger present at the time told TV network Telemundo: “We heard the family’s screams because we were close by.
“I looked when I heard the mother’s cry. That tonality, a scream of pain of that nature. It does not compare with any other scream.”