Cruise passenger’s body decayed after crew stored it in drink cooler, family’s suit says
When a funeral services employee went to retrieve a man’s body after he died aboard a Celebrity Cruises ship, the passenger wasn’t inside the ship’s morgue, according to a lawsuit.
The body of Robert L. Jones of Bonifay, Florida, was found in the Celebrity Equinox ship’s drink cooler, where it laid in a body bag on a floor palette for days and was badly decayed, his family’s lawsuit filed April 19 in federal court in Miami says.
The drink cooler was not cold enough to properly store a body and prevent it from decomposing, according to the complaint.
As a result, the family’s plans to have an open casket funeral for Jones after the ship returned to Fort Lauderdale from the Caribbean were no longer possible — as his remains were “so far gone in the decomposition process” and couldn’t be salvaged, the complaint says.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Marilyn Jones, Jones’ wife of 55 years, his daughters Robin Phillips and Teresa West, and his three grandchildren.
They are seeking $1 million in damages.
Celebrity Cruises, which is headquartered in Miami, declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on April 21.
Crew encourages Jones’ wife to keep body on the ship, lawsuit says
While on a trip to the Eastern Caribbean with his wife, Jones died from heart complications aboard the 1,041-foot-long Celebrity Equinox ship on Aug. 15, the complaint says.
The cruise’s crew members “encouraged” Marilyn Jones, who was 78 at the time, to keep her husband’s remains on the ship until they returned to Fort Lauderdale instead of his body being removed in San Juan, Puerto Rico, according to the complaint.
They also told Jones and West, who wasn’t aboard the ship, that Jones’ body could be stored in the ship’s working morgue, the complaint says.
While relying on the crew members’ advice, Jones gave them permission to store her husband’s body in the ship’s morgue for the next six days, according to the complaint.
At some point before the ship docked in Fort Lauderdale, Jones’ body was moved from the morgue to the drink’s cooler on a separate floor for reasons not specified in the complaint.
On Aug. 21, a local funeral home employee was escorted by a Broward County deputy sheriff onto the ship to get Jones’ body so it could be sent to Bonifay for a funeral, the complaint says.
Ultimately, Jones’ body was found with an intubation tube still left in his throat, and his body had decomposed inside a body bag in the drink cooler that was not at an “appropriate” temperature, according to the complaint.
If a body is placed in a proper morgue, it could remain up to months without decomposing, the complaint says.
Storing the bodies of people who die aboard the cruise isn’t something new for Celebrity Cruises, according to the complaint, which says the company is required to have a working morgue.
The company’s “actions and inactions with regard to Mr. Jones’s body were extremely indifferent to his passing, his dignity, and his family, friends, and community’s loss, and showed an entire want of care for the safety of his remains,” the complaint says.
Jones’ wife, children, grandchildren and friends were unable to get the closure they deserved at an open casket funeral, a “practice which was a part of his family’s culture,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida.
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