Navigating A Course To Justice

Parents Sue Disney Cruise After Boy Attacked by Anteater

On Behalf of | Dec 23, 2019 | Firm News

The parents of a boy who was attacked by an anteater have filed a lawsuit against Disney Cruise Lines. They claim that after the boy was attacked by the anteater, the Disney Cruise Line did not administer the proper care required to manage his injuries. Essentially, the second part of the allegation is more important than the first.

The young boy and his mother were vacationing aboard the Disney cruise ship, The Wonder and they docked in Cartagena Colombia. During their stay in Colombia, they visited the National Aviary of Colombia. It was then that an anteater, who was not properly separated from the public, attacked the boy. The complaint says that the boy sustained “severe” injuries.

Once back on the ship, the boy received medical care for the injuries but still managed to sustain a mycobacterial infection. His attorneys are claiming that a failure to diagnose the problem correctly led to the infection which worsened the boy’s injuries.

Among the two named defendants are Magical Cruise Company and Vanter Cruise Health Services which provided the cruise ship with medical support.

Medical Care an Issue on Cruise Ships

Medical problems continue to be a major source of shrinkage for cruise ships, which continue to find themselves in the position of facing lawsuits from guests who suffer medical events without recourse to hospital staff. While the doctors aboard cruise ships are licensed physicians, access to doctors can be sporadic and the doctors themselves often miss obvious signs of medical distress.

In this case, an infection could have been avoidable. The boy was bitten by an anteater entirely eliminating the mystery. Since the mouths of animals, much like their human counterparts, are riddled with various kinds of bacteria, an antibiotic may have stopped the wound from becoming infected.

However, when it comes to mycobacterial infections, the antibiotics required may not have been readily available to the medical staff aboard the cruise ship. Further complicating matters, antimycobacterial antibiotics have severe hepatotoxicity meaning that a doctor would have to oversee the procedure. Lastly, a regimen of antibiotics to reduce a mycobacterial infection generally requires a lengthy commitment to the antibiotics. In other words, you can’t take three pills and get rid of your mycobacterial infection.

Will This Lawsuit Be Successful?

In order for this particular lawsuit to be successful, the plaintiffs must be able to argue that antimycobacterial antibiotics have some place on cruise ships even though those on the antibiotics need to have their liver checked periodically to ensure that the antibiotics aren’t interfering with liver function. In other words, it doesn’t really sound like the kind of medication that would be kept around in a cruise ship infirmary and it sounds precisely like that’s what the defense will argue in this case.

Talk to a Maritime Injury Lawyer Today

If you’ve been injured at sea, Miami admiralty & maritime lawyer Michael F. Guilford can help you file a claim against the cruise line that caused your injury. Talk to us today and we can schedule a free case evaluation.