Chef’s death found ‘misadventure’ after fall from boat
(CNS): An inquest jury has found that Kasun Tharuka Madushanka Fernando (32) from Sri Lanka died as a result of misadventure when he fell off a party boat and drowned in the North Sound last year. On Monday, 11 October 2021, Fernando, who was a chef at the Westin hotel, took a trip on the Tortuga party boat but fell overboard shortly before 7:30pm that evening. Despite an extensive and coordinated search for him, involving around two dozen private as well as official vessels, his body was not found until two days later along the Barkers coast in West Bay.
While the members of the jury found there were no suspicious circumstances and nothing to suggest that anyone else played a part in his falling overboard, they did raise concerns during the inquest about inadequate safety standards on the busy vessel. The jury also heard about the panic on board and the difficulty the captain had stopping people from jumping overboard, putting their lives at risk, in a blind effort to find and save Fernando without having the details of where he had gone over.
Coroner Angelyn Hernandez explained that, as a result of the jury’s findings, she had an obligation under the law to raise those concerns with the relevant parties. Hernandez said that she would be passing on the issues raised during the inquest about safety issues in a report to the authorities.
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Category: Local News
This sends completely the wrong message: that local boat captains, operators, and all those sailing under Cayman Islands ensign, are exempt from Maritime Law, their implicit responsibility and duty of care for the safety and well being of their crew and passengers, even when knowing their entrusted souls are dangerously impaired. This is an incredibly weak position to continue endorsing and raises suspicion of judicial-political meddling to absolve West Bay Operators, blind of course to the greater international erosion on the quality and standard of our Maritime Registry.
Ban party boats or make their safety requirements more stringent!
I wonder how many of the paid deck hands, many of them on work permits due to the demand for cheap labour, have ever heard about “man overboard drill”?
15 @ 1:25 pm – Glow lights is an excellent idea! Operators will not be able to stop drinking, reckless behaviour or plain stupidity. But some means of identifying an unfortunate person who may go overboard is at least a step forward.
Glow light wrist bands for all night cruise passengers!
Operators don’t have to wait for regs. Use common sense ideas for free from someone who is thinking!
I been on a boat party and same thing happened, couldn’t find the person in the pitch black water for almost 20 mins, lucky enough we found him.
When you sign that waiver and drink alcohol on a boat in the ocean at night is a bad bad combo.
Boats should be required to give people glow lights on their hands so can see when they go over.
15 @ 1:25 pm – Glow lights is an excellent idea! Operators will not be able to stop drinking, reckless behaviour or plain stupidity. But some means of identifying an unfortunate person who may go overboard is at least a step forward.
Glow light wrist bands for all night cruise passengers!
Operators don’t have to wait for regs. Use common sense ideas for free from someone who is thinking!
Responsible operators can have an employee procedures manual, like all the other businesses in Cayman. They can open and close the bar, or cut off certain people for their own safety. They can put a wristband on those that can’t swim. Keep a headcount while underway. They should be able to be put under strict observation/probation, or loose their Captian’s license and T&BL if they don’t. A human being died, but apparently jury decided he was just a disposable Sri Lankan (because passport matters for some reason), tough luck.
or maybe just don’t drink as much as an elephant see how that goes
Hopefully the relevant authorities will respond proactively to the report of the corner’s court, with the acceptance and support of the relevant industry.
Good luck with that. I was on an inquest jury several years ago, and the facts were that a woman diver surfaced approximately 25 yards from the dive boat, visibly in trouble, and then subsequently drowned. The lookout on the dive boat saw it all happen but, by the rules in effect, he couldn’t go to her rescue because other divers were still down.
The verdict was death by misadventure, but my view was how in the hell do you watch someone drown and do nothing to help? Solve a simple problem like that in the dive industry before tackling rules and regulations to handle drunken party boats.