Haunted by news about 80 year old woman left behind on Lizard Island

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You NEVER hike by yourself!

She went with people so don't blame the victim. Sounds like the others left her behind.

The article implies that when she started to feel unwell, the leaders of the group told her to walk back down the way they had come. Then didn't do a headcount before going back to the boat.

If that's true, it's hugely negligent.

Agree. Someone should have accompanied her back. A headcount would have caught the issue.

I did a scuba trip at the Great Barrier Reef years ago and they were very diligent about doing headcounts before the boat moved anywhere. I think sometime before that a couple had been left behind by a scuba boat and lessons were learned. I’m sorry for what the poor woman went through.

There is a movie about that case.

True horror story.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t imagine deciding to be an 81 year old solo traveler on a cruise though. Doesn’t seem smart. If she had enough money for this expensive cruise she should have paid for a nurse of something to go with her.

Live a bit longer.

Some people don’t have the options you would prefer.

Are they consigned to sitting on the couch and watching TV?

[Anonymous]

It sounds like she turned around as the trail was too difficult and everyone thought she would head back down the trail to the ship but for some unknown reason she went off trail and didn't go back down to the ship. Either she got lost or was disoriented or was already suffering a medical event. I don't think the hikers did anything wrong. I am sure it isn't uncommon for people to turn back on hikes and go back to the ship - by parents did that twice on excursions on their cruise.

They were wrong for not doing a count and realizing she was missing. We don't know when or why she died so it isn't clear if she could have lived if they had found her before sailing or not.

[Anonymous]

Maybe a little off topic but I did some group tours in Australia this summer, as a solo traveler, and I noticed a cavalier attitude towards checking numbers. There was a transfer from bus to boat and the group leader didn't know how many people should have been on the boat, and almost left without 4 people.

This was alarming to me as a solo traveler since no one would likely mention I was missing. So I just made sure I arrived before the time etc.

I haven't experienced this casual attitude about headcounts in other countries' tours - S Am, Asia, Europe.

Australia was definitely an outlier in this respect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You NEVER hike by yourself!

She went with people so don't blame the victim. Sounds like the others left her behind.

You think a group of people willingly left an elderly woman alone on a hike?

Obviously they did!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You NEVER hike by yourself!

She went with people so don't blame the victim. Sounds like the others left her behind.

The article implies that when she started to feel unwell, the leaders of the group told her to walk back down the way they had come. Then didn't do a headcount before going back to the boat.

If that's true, it's hugely negligent.

Agree. Someone should have accompanied her back. A headcount would have caught the issue.

I did a scuba trip at the Great Barrier Reef years ago and they were very diligent about doing headcounts before the boat moved anywhere. I think sometime before that a couple had been left behind by a scuba boat and lessons were learned. I’m sorry for what the poor woman went through.

There is a movie about that case.

True horror story.

Yes— Open Water. Devastating story based on a true story. So, so sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s fine. She was a ripe old age. Everyone is going to die someday, and she died doing what she loved. Even if they had done the headcount and gone back she might have already been dead. People make such a fuss about these incidents. Mistakes happen.

Wait till you or someone you care about gets killed in a car crash or from a medical oopsie. Mistakes happen, huh?

That would be a tragedy now because I am young with young kids. If it happened when I was 81 it would be sad for my immediate family, but it wouldn’t be a tragedy that people on the opposite side of the world need to care about.

An older life is still a life. You have no right choosing for her. Why are you on this thread if you don't give an F?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she went there to die. Wanting to have her last moments alone in a pretty spot.
Common in some cultures.

Why pay for a 60-day trip and die on day 1? You are an imbecile.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she went there to die. Wanting to have her last moments alone in a pretty spot.
Common in some cultures.

Why pay for a 60-day trip and die on day 1? You are an imbecile.

You think someone who is wanting to die in a nice spot that happens to be the first stop, is worried about "getting her money's worth" out of the voyage? Sounds really tightwad.

JFC "Idiocracy" was prophetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like she turned around as the trail was too difficult and everyone thought she would head back down the trail to the ship but for some unknown reason she went off trail and didn't go back down to the ship. Either she got lost or was disoriented or was already suffering a medical event. I don't think the hikers did anything wrong. I am sure it isn't uncommon for people to turn back on hikes and go back to the ship - by parents did that twice on excursions on their cruise.

They were wrong for not doing a count and realizing she was missing. We don't know when or why she died so it isn't clear if she could have lived if they had found her before sailing or not.

It is very uncommon to leave one or two people alone in a tour group outing. I was hiking a volcano with a tour group and a young woman deduced it was too difficult for her. Both her boyfriend and a tour guide accompanied her back to the van to wait for us. You don't leave a customer alone, unless you want to lose your business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Maybe she went there to die. Wanting to have her last moments alone in a pretty spot.
Common in some cultures.

Why pay for a 60-day trip and die on day 1? You are an imbecile.

You think someone who is wanting to die in a nice spot that happens to be the first stop, is worried about "getting her money's worth" out of the voyage? Sounds really tightwad.

JFC "Idiocracy" was prophetic.

So she called you before she died and now you are her spokesperson? What a tool.

[Anonymous]

We did a luxury cruise of that size in Galapagos with Celebrity and we had to scan in with our cards upon returning to the ship. It seems really really strange that they wouldn't notice there was someone off ship. I guess it's possible she somehow left without remembering to scan out. I will say that was a little different than big ships, because there wasn't a controlled exist portal like on big ships.

I hope that she did have a heart attack and died that way, not that she was scared and alone overnight. I'm sure it gets crazy dark at night way out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like she turned around as the trail was too difficult and everyone thought she would head back down the trail to the ship but for some unknown reason she went off trail and didn't go back down to the ship. Either she got lost or was disoriented or was already suffering a medical event. I don't think the hikers did anything wrong. I am sure it isn't uncommon for people to turn back on hikes and go back to the ship - by parents did that twice on excursions on their cruise.

They were wrong for not doing a count and realizing she was missing. We don't know when or why she died so it isn't clear if she could have lived if they had found her before sailing or not.

It is very uncommon to leave one or two people alone in a tour group outing. I was hiking a volcano with a tour group and a young woman deduced it was too difficult for her. Both her boyfriend and a tour guide accompanied her back to the van to wait for us. You don't leave a customer alone, unless you want to lose your business.

Often tour groups have one guide at the front and one at the back. I think they left this woman at a specific location (a landmark on the trail) and planned to pick her back up on the way back down. When they got back to the landmark she was gone, so they likely assumed she had made her way back to the ship. I don't know how often the tenders were running but they could have assumed she got back on the ship on an earlier tender.

Like I said, my parents abandoned excursions twice on their cruise, and no one from the cruise ship / tour went with them either time. Once they started out and then realized it was too steep and they didn't think they had the right shoes or fitness so they just turned back and wandered around in a different part of the island on their own on a more suitable walking path. The other time of them felt sick so they left the group and went back to the boat on their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It sounds like she turned around as the trail was too difficult and everyone thought she would head back down the trail to the ship but for some unknown reason she went off trail and didn't go back down to the ship. Either she got lost or was disoriented or was already suffering a medical event. I don't think the hikers did anything wrong. I am sure it isn't uncommon for people to turn back on hikes and go back to the ship - by parents did that twice on excursions on their cruise.

They were wrong for not doing a count and realizing she was missing. We don't know when or why she died so it isn't clear if she could have lived if they had found her before sailing or not.

It is very uncommon to leave one or two people alone in a tour group outing. I was hiking a volcano with a tour group and a young woman deduced it was too difficult for her. Both her boyfriend and a tour guide accompanied her back to the van to wait for us. You don't leave a customer alone, unless you want to lose your business.

Often tour groups have one guide at the front and one at the back. I think they left this woman at a specific location (a landmark on the trail) and planned to pick her back up on the way back down. When they got back to the landmark she was gone, so they likely assumed she had made her way back to the ship. I don't know how often the tenders were running but they could have assumed she got back on the ship on an earlier tender.

Like I said, my parents abandoned excursions twice on their cruise, and no one from the cruise ship / tour went with them either time. Once they started out and then realized it was too steep and they didn't think they had the right shoes or fitness so they just turned back and wandered around in a different part of the island on their own on a more suitable walking path. The other time of them felt sick so they left the group and went back to the boat on their own.

There were two of them though. Even that is borderline but a person alone not feeling well on a very hot day should not be left unsupervised. It's a huge failure from the ship but I also wonder what other passengers have to say.

[Anonymous]

IIRC when we were on Coral Adventurer there were no cabin keys. You could bolt inside but not lock when leaving. Safety or something. So no key cards to scan.
They did manual counts and sometimes a roll call. So counting was crucial.
There are a number of land excursions, not like ship port calls where you roam free. They brought you and got you back. These usually were remote islands, in our case in Indonesia.
As far as 80 being too old, a lot of passengers were a lot older than me (69 at the time). One of them was an Australian artist who told me he was almost 80. He did all the activities and is still painting and traveling to Fiji and around Australia and swimming in the Harbor each morning, at over 85.