Coast Guard Searching for Man After He Apparently Jumped Overboard While on Carnival Cruise Ship

Photo: RHONA WISE/AFP/Getty

The United States Coast Guard is currently searching for a man who went overboard on a Carnival cruise ship Thursday night hours after its departure out of Galveston, Texas.

Carnival tells PEOPLE in a statement that “based on camera footage,” the man — who was on a Carnival Dream ship for a four-day sojourn — appears to have “jumped from his stateroom balcony.”

“The ship’s command promptlybegan search and rescue procedures, returned to the area near where the incident occurred and notified the U.S. Coast Guard, which sent a helicopter to assist in the search,” the statement continues. “Several cargo ships also joined the search.”

Carnival

Anews release from the Coast Guardreports that the ship was less than 50 miles from Galveston when the guest went missing around 8:45 p.m. local time Thursday night, and that the as-of-now-unnamed man is 26 years old.

Houston-based stationABC13spoke with another guest aboard the ship about the incident, Darrell Byer, who recorded video footage of the Coast Guard’s search and said they have “a pretty sad situation out here right now.”

“A man overboard,” Byer added. “We turned the ship around, and we’re in a search pattern right now. I didn’t know the passenger. Good idea, who it was, they were calling the name out for quite a while, several times.”

Carnival Valor.Andy Newman/Carnival Cruise Lines via Getty

The incident comes just two weeks after a 23-year-old man was critically injuredafter he fell on board a Carnival cruise ship, sustaining “multiple significant injuries” while on deck of the line’s Valor ship off the coast of Louisiana, the Coast Guardsaid in a news release.

He was airlifted, along with the ship’s doctor, to University Medical Center in New Orleans, where he arrived in critical condition, according to the Coast Guard.

And in August, two men sprang into action to help a woman in awheelchair who fell into the water from a Carnival Fascination cruise shipdock in St. Thomas. The men, who were local entertainers, carried the woman to the edge of the dock, where cruise ship staff members threw a rope to the group. They were then pulled to safety.

source: people.com