Parents of toddler who fell from Royal Caribbean ship to appear on TV
The Indiana parents of a toddler who fell from the 11th deck of a Royal Caribbean ship in Puerto Rico will share their story on NBC’s “Today” show this morning.
Alan and Kimberly Wiegand will be talking about their 18-month-old daughter Chloe and cruise ship safety.
“They are discussing the tragedy and trying to raise awareness so something like this never happens again,” their Miami maritime attorney Michael Winkleman said of the interview.
The girl was traveling with her parents, two siblings and two sets of grandparents July 7 when they boarded the Freedom of the Seas which was docked in San Juan. That afternoon, Chloe Wiegand was with her maternal grandfather Salvatore Anello. He placed her on a wooden railing along a wall of windows in the ship’s water park area and she fell through an open window, according to their attorney.
At a news conference that week, Winkleman disputed initial media and police reports that the girl slipped from her grandfather’s arms when she fell.
Winkleman said the girl had “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.”
The family flew back to their South Bend, Ind., home July 11 for the girl’s funeral, which was held last week, said Winkleman. Each of the officers who attended carried a carnation and one officer carried a hand-drawn portrait of the girl, according to WSBT-Ch. 22.
The girl’s father is a police officer in the town; the girl’s mother is a former deputy prosecutor for St. Joseph County, according to WSBT which also reported that the grandfather works in the IT department for the county.
Winkleman said they are seeking surveillance video from the cruise ship of where the incident took place.
“RCCL still has not disclosed the CCTV footage,” he said.
Owen Torres, a spokesman for Royal Caribbean, did not immediately respond to a media inquiry Sunday. He said earlier that the cruise line was “deeply saddened” by the tragedy and the cruise line was assisting authorities in San Juan.