Carnival Cruise Line wouldn’t let passenger off ship after ‘major’ heart attack, legal claim alleges

The grieving family of a man who died on a cruise ship is suing Carnival, claiming it ignored pleas to let the dying man get off to seek medical help.

Carnival Cruise Line, the world’s largest cruise operator, is being sued by the family of a 65-year-old passenger who died after allegedly not being allowed off the ship to receive medical treatment for a heart attack.

The family of American man Jeffrey Eisenman is bringing the legal claim against the Carnival Sunshine and its crew for negligence and infliction of emotional distress. The ship lacked adequate medical facilities, the case alleges, according to Fox News.

According to the legal claim, the ship’s doctor diagnosed that Mr Eisenman suffered a “major heart attack” while the ship was docked at Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos Islands on December 3, 2018, the Miami Herald reported. The man died the next day.

“Jeffrey Eisenman died on-board while confined to the medical centre of the Carnival Sunshine against his will,” the legal claim says. “His family was forced to watch on in horror at his mistreatment and decline into a gruesome death.”

The family claims Mr Eisenman, who was told by the doctor that he had to be flown to Miami, wasn’t allowed to leave the ship which was then set to sail for San Juan, Puerto Rico, even though the family had an insurance policy that covered the cost of an air ambulance.

“Inexplicably, all of their requests and pleas for help went unanswered,” according to the legal case.

The man's family claims crew on the Carnival Sunshine refused to let him off the ship to seek medical help before he died. Picture: Carnival

“The Carnival Sunshine left Grand Turk with Jeffrey Eisenman and his family confined on-board against their will, helpless against the wilful inhumane conduct of Carnival in holding a critically ill man imprisoned in an unequipped medical centre.”

Following the death, the family continued reeling from the tragedy while the cruise company told them Mr Eisenman’s body couldn’t be removed in Puerto Rico because it was unclear if it would be returned from the hurricane-damaged island in a timely manner, Bloomberg reported.

The ship returned to Cape Canaveral, Florida, five days later.

This article originally appeared on Fox News and was reproduced with permission