Att’y: Tot fell from open ship window

An 18-month-old Indiana girl who fell to her death from the 11th story of a cruise ship in Puerto Rico plunged from a window inexplicably left open in a children’s play area, the family’s lawyer said Tuesday.

Puerto Rico officials said Monday that Chloe Wiegand (photo) apparently slipped from her grandfather’s hands Sunday as he held her out an 11th-floor window on the Freedom of the Seas.

But Michael Winkleman, attorney the girl’s family, said Tuesday “the story is not as it had originally been portrayed.”

“The grandfather didn’t drop the child. The child fell due to an open glass pane that should have been closed securely,” he said in a statement.

Winkleman said Chloe Wiegand, whose father is a South Bend, Ind., cop, was playing with her grandfather in the “kid’s water zone” on the ship as it was docked in Puerto Rico when she asked him to lift her to a wall of windows lining the play area.

“Chloe wanted to bang on the glass like she always did at her older brother’s hockey games. Her grandfather thought there was glass just like everywhere else, but there was not, and she was gone in an instant,” Winkleman said.

A message was left Tuesday with police in Puerto Rico seeking comment.

Winkleman said the girl’s family wants to know why a window that “should have been closed securely” was open. Winkleman said the family is “understandably too distraught to talk” about the tragedy.

Royal Caribbean Cruises called the girl’s death a tragic incident in a statement and said it was helping the family.

The cruise line had not responded to messages left Tuesday seeking comment.

Puerto Rico Ports Authority spokesman José Carmona said Monday officials are investigating.