Trapped ship passengers can't go overboard with New Year celebration (ice trapped)

Chicago Tribune ^ | December 31, 2013 | Lincoln Feast and Maggie Lu Yueyang

[grania]

It's really not funny. A few years ago, I was on a fantasy cruise, leaving Southampton and going into those choppy waters south of England. We got a real lesson that it's not all easy to do these sea rescues.

An elderly lady fell and broke her hip. They had to get her off the ship by helicopter. It took hours to maneuver in the choppy seas so the helicopter could safely land and take off. That was just one person being evacuated and the ship not having to deal with ice. It was on the Queen Mary 2, about the sturdiest ships there is. These folks are on a much smaller ship.

Maybe everybody on board should stop laughing and joking and realize there's real danger here, both to the passengers and to those who will have to make the rescue. Maybe we should be asking why those rescuers have to risk their lives because of "extreme" vacationing run amok.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Truthfully, by now they should be desperate to evacuate, because unless they take the first opportunity to do so, it may soon be too late. Temperatures in January are usually the second warmest, but winter may come weeks early.

Even leaving a skeleton crew behind is a big risk.

[Mastador1]

...because drunk, stupid, and frozen is no way to go through life...

But not a bad way for a liberal to end it?

[Paladin2]

What do the GPS readings indicate as to the ship's movement to open water?

How many decades will it take until it is free again?

[Cementjungle]

But they can't party too hard because the rescue could come at any minute.

Stories of extraordinary human endurance like this one just warm the heart.