Really? What legal action do you feel should be prosecuted against him? I don’t expect any evidence to be introduced as I expect this to be quietly settled.
It sounds entirely plausible to me. I used to lean against a bus stop shelter every morning and read my newspaper. One day I leaned against it but the plexiglass window had been broken out and I nearly fell backwards. I caught myself but I still twisted and bruised my ankle. It happened because I wasn’t looking right at it and because I expected it to be there. An older guy looking outside (not at) the window and expecting glass to be there? Same thing. It doesn’t take stupidity; it just takes a moment of inattention. If you think you are perfectly attentive all the time, I can assure you that you are not.
From the inside picture at night, the absence of the window was clear to me from the giant red circle, but not otherwise. The glass’s absence might have been more visible from inside the ship but I’m not certain.
He was holding her. Continuing to hold a toddler is very natural. As is, if you’re an older guy, cheating a little bit on the holding and resting her on the railing.
No, but it’s weird to have a 15’ wall of glass to keep you from going overboard but have just one panel of glass missing so you can fall through.
Boy, I’m shocked that the people on the true crime website reached this conclusion. I wonder if the people on the “human beings sometimes make mistakes” board agree.
This grandfather, tragically, it would seem.
A moment of inattention, or attention directed to the wrong thing. If you haven’t done this exercise before, count how many times the ball gets passed in this video.
Did you see the ape? How could you miss it? Are you blind? Cognitively deficient? On drugs?
This seems possible but a lot less likely than that the thing he said immediately after it happened was true.
The glass did not look tinted to me at all. Yes, the air and sounds are different at the open window. Had he first done this at three or four closed windows, he probably would have realized quicker that this window was open. It seems he just had terrible luck to draw the open window first.
Agreed. I feel bad for him too. A friend of a friend lost her twins to drowning in a horrible accident caused by just a bit of inattention. She was investigated for homicide and many ignorant people accused her of killing her kids. It was just a mistake. She has security camera footage of her first child falling in the pool and her second falling in later trying to pull him out.
I’m not saying Grandpa is completely without fault, but there are a few things to consider. Unlike **doreen, **I believe glass would be less visible during the day since there would be not glare from inside unless a bright light were shining on it. (It’s not clear to me that this tragedy happened in daylight, given the nighttime photos taken afterward.)
Weigand did let a small child put all her weight against a window in the play area of a cruise. But surely any window on a ship would withstand that. The glass around the ice at a hockey arena can withstand the violent thwack of a puck.
As for putting her on the rail in the first place, I can imagine him swinging her up quickly with barely a glance at the window. From there it’s all momentum and wriggling.
My sister’s favorite picture from childhood is of her and our brother, barely older than the toddler, dangling their legs over the roof of the family car - which was much higher and more sloping than today’s models. Dad’s “safety” measure was to stand beside them facing the camera with a hand of each of their feet. The best he could have done was swing them into the side of the car. Even with the fond memory (i.e., jealousy that I wasn’t born yet), the danger makes me queasy.
Regardless of the grandfather’s culpability, the cruise line is much more responsible.
I hope once the family recovers from the shock of it all that they do quietly settle. Grandpa bears the brunt of responsibility.
Disney had/had gators on their property. Lane Graves a little boy was killed by gators while on Disney property. They could’ve sued but chose not to. They did receive a settlement and created a foundation in honor of their son.
On the ships I’m familiar with, the tinting was a slight blue shade, not the kind of tint one would have on a car window. I suspect it’s probably a UV coating. Tint aside, those windows tend to be somewhat cloudy, too, since they don’t get washed every day. I haven’t got the sharpest vision in the world, but I’ve never been confused open or closed windows.
I haven’t been on RCL, but where I have been - a bunch of different lines - the windows are always a bit foggy/tinted/dirty. I bet the guy put the baby up there because the view out the open window was so much better than from the other windows.
It wasn’t a 15 foot tall wall of glass to keep you from going overboard that was missing a panel - everything I’ve seen , including from the family’s lawyer describes it as a window that was capable of opening. In fact, the lawyer says “Why would you ever in a kids play area put windows that passengers can open?”. Except it pretty obviously wasn’t a kids’ play area- at 55 seconds into this video you can see the area - it’s got lounge chairs and tables with chairs and bar stools (and presumably a bar as well). There might be a pool there, but it’s not a kid’s area. Kids’ areas don’t have barstools.
I’d have noticed the ape the first time if he had walked a foot in front of my face, even if I was counting how many times the ball was passed. Just like I’d have noticed if the view through that window was clearer or the air seemed warmer or there was a breeze.
Look, I’m not saying the man should be arrested- but even taking him at his word, he did a number of dumb things, not just one. Thought it was a good idea to encourage an 18 month old to bang on glass, decided that floor level glass wasn’t good enough so stood her on a rail, didn’t notice as he was putting her on the rail that the window right in front of his face was open and wasn’t holding her tightly enough to keep her from falling. All the cruise ship did was have a window that could open - which is something windows often do. I’m sure he didn’t mean for her to fall - but whether he had some sort of medical problem or had a couple of beers or just wasn’t thinking at the worst possible time, I don’t see how the cruise line is more at fault than him because they had a window that actually opened.
And since the play area bit wasn’t accurate, I’m not sure I believe he was being 100% truthful about not knowing the window was open. He’s certainly not going to tell the parents " Yeah I knew the window was open but the view was better without looking through the cloudy windows". Not if he ever wants any of his family to speak to him again.
I’m giving a 10% chance that it will come out that he opened the window for a better view. Because he sounds just that stupid.
Yes, thanks. I mean, wtf? You encourage your kid to baby on glass windows, in public? I feel bad for the kid and all, but some adults shouldn’t supervise children.
OK, if you look at this photo you can see in the far distance where there are some tables and chairs and windows. I suspect that this is where it happened and it looks to me like about every third window is open. My opinion is that it was a terrible accident but you cannot hold the cruise ship responsible. There is no way to make a ship completely safe for a toddler. There are railings she could climb over and balconies she could fall off. Most private houses have second floor windows that open. It wasn’t like the floor level windows were open and she could just run over and fall out. Some tragedies just happen and you don’t always have somebody to blame.
It’s reported that the incident happened in the vicinity of the H20 kid’s pool area. Here’s a video of a deck tour showing this area, and there are several shots of the windows.
I think it would be hard to prove liability on the part of the cruise line operator. Unless there’s witness testimony or video evidence that proves otherwise, I’d give the grandfather the benefit of the doubt regarding negligence on his part.
I don’t know. I wasn’t there. It’s not clear to me from the pictures which windows are open and which are closed.
And the meaningful difference between open and missing in this case is what exactly? In either case, it just means there was no glass to hold the toddler in.
So what you’re saying is that you missed something very obvious that happened right in your field of view because you weren’t specifically looking for it? But that could never happen in any other context, right?
I mostly agree. This doesn’t seem like the cruise line’s fault. It’s just a terrible accident. The only way I might blame the cruise line is if other people have had a tendency to fall out of these windows or accidentally drop things (or children) out of them because they don’t notice that the windows are open.
This seems plausible. It’s really understandable that he might have been drawn to the “window” offering the clearest view without noticing that the view was clear because there was no glass there.
I don’t really feel any should. But it impresses me that HE was the person whose actions were most directly responsible for the child’s death. And I saw a blurb saying PR was investgating possible criminal prosecution. Not sure against the GF or the cruise line.
Spoke with this at some length with my wife. We are both lawyers. She teaches business and hospitality law and mediates lawsuits. I’m an administrative law judge. And it is not ENTIRELY clear to me as to exactly what laws might apply, and whether anyone should be held criminally or civilly liable. In any event, you’d need to know an awful lot about applicable statutory and common law, and would need to read any contractual language related to the purchase of the cruise and develop all relevant facts. Just saying, it is VERY hard to get any specific answer - or even an informed opinion - at a distance, among non-experts such as us.
My thinking reflected some general idea of the duty of care a family member owes to a child. I hear enough instances where parents are charged criminally for leaving their kid home alone - or child abuse/neglect, it struck me as not-crazy to compare dropping your grandkid out a window to such cases. But - is there a directly applicable statute? (Note - my wife and I agree that FAR TOO MUCH behavior is criminalized.)
My remark essentially meant, if the parents were looking for someone to blame for this horrible accident, the appropriate person they should be looking at is the grandfather. My dtr and 4-yr old gdtr are coming over for lunch. I guarantee that at some point I’ll pick her up - maybe swing her around. EVERY TIME I DO SO, I think “BE VERY CAREFUL YOU DON’T DROP HER.” If I did and she was hurt, I’d KNOW I was responsible. I can’t imagine the mindset that a lesser duty of care is owed on a cruise ship…
If there is the idea that some cash settlement will provide SOME measure of comfort, maybe that could come from grandfather’s insurance/property. Just because the cruise line has deeper pockets, is insufficient reason to have them pay. Unless you feel the windows WERE a problem, and a cash penalty will encourage better windows/warnings on other cruise lines.
Children can be unpredictable and can’t be expected to foresee potential danger, especially if they are placed in an unfamiliar environment – like on top of a railing on the 11th deck of a cruise ship. It’s up to the caregivers in their lives to plan for any possible unpredictable action by the child and to foresee potential danger – like the possibility of an open window above that railing.
When I went through Navy nuclear power training years ago, one of things you learn to is to plan for as many contingencies as you can think of. Maybe it’s all that training, or maybe it’s just my personality, but I personally think it’s idiotic to trust a pane of glass in the first place. Whenever I’m admiring the view from a height, I always ask myself what the potential failure points are, e.g. what if this railing lets go? What if I lose my balance? I would never trust my own life to a pane of glass, much less that of a young child.
I remember taking my son up in Ferris Wheels when he was very young (~5-10 years old). My wife doesn’t like heights, so she refused to go. I couldn’t do much about the risk of mechanical failure, but I was always cognizant that that in rides like this with no restraints, there was nothing to keep my young son from going over the side (like if he decided to lean out for a better view). In addition to not letting him lean against the sides or the door, I kept a firm grip on his wrist for the entire ride. Not simply holding his hand, like when you cross the street…but a near-death grip on his wrist, strong enough to support his full weight.
There’s the story of Garry Hoy who tried to demonstrate that the glass in the windows of a Toronto skyscraper was unbreakable by hurling himself at a window. The good news is that the glass didn’t break but the bad news is that the window frame did.
This is a good example of what I was talking about – apparently when Mr. Hoy hurled himself at the window (which is not something commonly done by people), he never stopped to ask himself the question, “What happens if the glass breaks, or the window doesn’t hold?”
Read that the grandpa and both parents had to be sedated. Sad all around.
Didn’t he do it repeatedly? Like close to a dozen times or something?
That’s a special kind of foolish, I think.
Was this ship accident by day or night?
I think he knew damn well that there was no glass there. He thought he could hold onto the kid and didn’t.
I don’t think it is intentional, but them putting their mental effort into finding fault with the cruise ship diminishes their sense of the grandfather’s responsibility. It is much easier on him to blame them rather than blame himself.