from our lives by a bullet from a gun. >> i'll talk to the husband of the school psychologist who died at sandy hook. plus, the legendary jane fonda. her message for women everywhere. this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. i'm robin meade. normally you're going to find me on hln's "morning express," but i'm here tonight and thank you to piers and everyone who normally watches him for allowing me to sit in. we have a lot of news to get to. we start with that 900 foot, 14 story cruise ship that is adrift this hour in the gulf of mexico. and the growing desperation and anger for the thousands trapped on it. the ship is called the "triumph" and it's being slowly towed to land. it should arrive in mobile, alabama, tomorrow afternoon. what it means, though, is another long night of suffering for the people who are enduring deplorable conditions. a fire knocked out the ship's propulsion system that was on sunday. that was sunday. and what began as a four-day vacation is turning into an absolute nightmare for them and family members. now, carnival is giving passengers $500 in return, but is that really enough? they're giving other things, too. but with me right now from mobile, alabama, are ken kerrigan and mary puree, and their family is on board. this must be driving you crazy. >> very much. >> we're ready to see our babies. >> ready. >> i bet you are, kim. so kim and mary, your daughters have known each other for years, and did you have any concerns about them going on vacation together? >> oh, not at all. you know, their fathers are very good friends. they hang out all the time. the kids get to hang out all the time. so it was not a question of a doubt letting them go on a trip with their fathers. we know they're in good hands. >> when was the last time you guys heard from your daughters and what did they say? what was the communications? >> the last time and the only time i've heard from my daughter was on monday. that was about 30 hours after the fire. she called me at work. i'm a teacher. i pulled my phone into my office. when i spoke to her, she was hysterical, crying hysterically. she was scared. she didn't know what was going to happen next. and what broke my heart the very most was her saying, mommy, i don't know if i'll ever see you again. that's really hard to hear from your 12-year-old daughter and you're trying to hold it together for her. >> and they called us at the same time, so i could hear rebecca over my daughter through her phone talking to her mom, and i've got mine, you know, just this gut-wrenching crying, momma, just come get me. it's so hot. i don't want to be here, momma. just come get me, please. just to hear that. your heart stops. your stomach just knots up and you want to fall to the ground. but you don't. you pick yourself up and you get to your kid. >> what information do you guys have about what they are putting up with as passengers? i mean, we hear, okay, that there's very little sewage, there's very little running toilets and little food. but what did they tell you? >> monday i talked to my ex-husband and he told me that they had just eaten onion sandwiches and they were asking to use the red plastic bags to use the restroom in, and they had some fruit. they did have some water, but it was warm bottled water. and the conditions were just getting worse. >> what my daughter told me, i tried not to focus on the negative. i tried to focus on the fact that i loved her and missed her and i was going to do everything i could to make sure that she was okay. she said that very first night, that sunday night after the fire, they slept in the hall with no power, no air, no air circulation, in the total and complete darkness, so dark that you can't see your finger in front of your face. the darkest dark. >> how scary. >> and that bothers me for my 12-year-old daughter to sleep on the floor, in the hallway when she's supposed to be on a pleasurable vacation. it was very hard to hear that. >> i actually interviewed a man who said his wife told him she slept in the lifeboat outside because she wanted the air and didn't want to be in the hallway because the smell was so sick. carnival says they were going to offer $500, as well as a refund, as well as a replacement trip, and i think an extra trip, if i have that correct, a full refund, you can see it on your screen, nonrefundable transportation costs, prepaid shore excursions, gratuities, and government fees and taxes. is any of this enough? what do you want to make it better? >> right now we just want them home and want them in our arms, just like everybody on that ship wants to get off that boat. >> there are 4,000 people on that boat that have someone waiting for them out here, just like -- we're just two. we're just looking for two >> after they get settled on land and they get it behind them . a little bit, i think it will start to settle and they're just going to realize it's probably not going to be enough. for what they have gone through. >> did you guys hear anything -- >> they opened the bar up and serving alcohol. >> wow. >> which one of you brought -- >> serving alcohol to a bunch of angry, starving people. >> drunk. exactly. >> on a listing ship. >> did one of you bring antibiotics? >> we sure did. we contacted our doctors and told them what was going on with the situation, that our daughters were on there. they gave us an antibiotic to take with us to get our daughters started on, because we weren't sure we were getting them off. or when we would be able to bring them up to the doctor's office. >> we don't know what kind of conditions they're in. we're dealing with staph infections and hepatitis and norovirus are and any number of things that they may walk off the ship with. >> better safe than sorry. kim and mary, what a nice valentine's it's going to be when you have your daughters in your arms. thank you for talking with us. >> yes. thank you. thank you very much. >> you bet. are cruise ships worth the risk? let's ask our expert, jason clampett. he's the co-founder for swift.com. i didn't want to say when the moms were on here, but there were reports too that the stabilization system on the boat, that takes power. so the boat is listing. i can't imagine the thought of your kid out on the deck and the boat is listing. >> and when the power goes out, as it did, they have backup systems that can back up generators, but they only manage the most important functions, the navigation and keeping lights on up top. >> the reason we had you on tonight, i wanted to know what rights do you have as a traveler? who buys a cruise? so you're paying and you're probably hitting i agree on something that you signed your life away on a boat that is probably flagged in the bahamas. so as an american traveler, what do you got? >> you don't have a lot. there's a ton of fine print whenever you travel. whether you're flying or whether you're on the cruise, you don't have a lot of rights. you turn those over. so the passengers who are on the ship aren't going to have a great deal of recourse when they get home. those who purchased insurance, insurance doesn't really cover this type of thing, because it's not their -- their trip wasn't interrupted and they aren't incurring extra expenses. so they can't be compensated that way. travel insurance doesn't typically cover inconvenience, it covers lost money. >> how do you protect yourself before taking the cruise, knowing that? does insurance really help you? >> it does help a great deal. in carnival, the decisions they're making about how to reimburse people is the same thing that your insurance would do, covering the cost of the trip, any additional travel expenses you have to incur, and those are covered throughout what carnival is doing. >> i remember a different engine fire on a ship, and i remember obviously the "costa concordia," the hobble accident off the coast of italy, and now this. don't we have to have some perspective on this? >> it's safer than driving your car down the driveway, you can say that clearly. but there's been a number of these fires on boats that have knocked out the power system. you had 2010, another carnival ship, "the splendor" where it happened in the pacific, off the coast of mexico. and this time last year on the 12th, a sister ship, which is also owned by the carnival corporation, lost power in the indian ocean. not as many people on board, but they have the problem of pirates there. so you have the additional worry. >> i remember that now. is this going to impact the industry? are we going to have to see a lot of sales for people to go okay, i'll board again? >> it's a terrible sight of people trapped on a ship with limited food. so i think people will think twice. so you will see deep discounting. >> carnival is trying to communicate with the people that have loved ones on there and the spokesperson said, let me assure you, no one is happy about the conditions on board the ship. in your opinion, are they doing enough? >> i think what you can -- you can judge that once everybody is back home and see how they react to the complaints and to any oversight the government tries to impose or any -- how much information they give about the accident and how it happened. >> jason clampett, thank you. appreciate it. so now being on board the carnival "triumph" can pose a huge health risk. family members are anxiously waiting on the shore and some of them, as you heard, brought antibiotics just in case for the passengers at the direction of their own doctors. joining us is dr. jorge rodriguez. he's a doctor of internal medicine. is that wise to do come armed with antibiotics, even if you don't know that anyone is sick? >> i don't think so. and for the simple reason that not all antibiotics cover everything, and taking antibiotics preventively for something that someone may not have is not a smart idea. so i personally would not recommend that. if someone comes on shore and they have a problem, they can go straight to their doctor. >> tell me a little bit about what you think the biggest health risks some of these folks be on the boat are facing if there is, in fact, sewage, raw sewage around, and no air conditioning, and not proper food, it can be a number of different health problems, which is the most pressing? >> absolutely. you hit on the three major ones. if anybody has a cold or flu, that can spread easily. if it was up to me, i wouldn't have been giving people ziploc bags to defecate into. >> can you imagine? >> no, i can't. but you know what? you can get things on your hands and you don't have proper water to clean yourself. that's where you can spread hepatitis a or b. and hepatitis is most easily spread from people that don't know they have it. i think that is one of the major concerns. the second one is if there isn't enough electricity, a lot of that food could spoil, and you could easily get a break -- some sort of outbreak of e-coli, salmonella or staph food poisoning. so those are the three main things. respiratoried,, contaminated food, and feces. just being transmitted from person to person. >> even hard to talk about. but certainly could be a reality. i wonder too and -- you think about the love boat and there's always one doctor on board. but i wonder for a ship with 4,000 people on board, how many medical personnel you do have on a regular basis and can they handle what is presented to them? >> yeah, they usually have just one physician on board, at most two physicians. and honestly, how could they handle, you know, anything that's going on now? from what i've been reading, and you tell me if there's something different, so far there hasn't been an outbreak of anything. but this is really a floating petrie dish. it's in the gulf, it's warm, you don't have sanitary conditions. so hopefully they'll get back to shore within the next day or two before anything breaks out. but people that are on that cruise really have to be careful for the next day to couple of weeks. they may have contracted something that's sort of just festering under the surface and won't come to full blown infectious status. >> they are supposed to be home tomorrow. so dr. jorge rodriguez, thank you so much. appreciate it. >> my pleasure. i want to get to this right now. we have some incredible and heartwarming photos to share with you of a young boy freed from the underground bunker in alabama. these are pictures just released tonight of 6-year-old ethan and his mom meeting the governor and they show ethan smiling and playing and it looks like he's having a good time. thank goodness. he was rescued last week after spending days as the hostage of the gunman who murdered the boy's bus driver. the kidnapper was killed in the raid to free ethan. so glad to see a smile on that little boy's face. when we come back, we're going to talk about the president's proposals regarding gun control in the state of the union last night and the reaction we're getting today. and then miss jane fonda joins us. she has a cause that she's talking about. we'll ask her about things, for one, is she still going to be on the newsroom, you know, on hbo? 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[ male announcer ] enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events, including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders, and allergic reactions have occurred. before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis and discuss whether you've been to a region where certain fungal infections are common. you should not start enbrel if you have an infection like the flu. tell your doctor if you're prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b, have been treated for heart failure, or if you have symptoms such as persistent fever, bruising, bleeding, or paleness. if you've had enough, ask your dermatologist about enbrel. gabby giffords deserves a vote. the families of newtown deserve a vote. the families of aurora deserve a vote. the families of oak creek and tucson and blacksburg and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence, they deserve a simple vote. >> an emotional plea by the president last night to congress in his state of the union address. he's pushing lawmakers to pass a sweeping gun control plan and he mentioned newtown. tomorrow marks two months since the sandy hook massacre, and joining us now is suzy young, the co-founder of sandy hook promise. we'll talk about that later. and also with us is bill sherlock. his wife, mary, was the school psychologist there at sandy hook elementary. she died in the gunfire, but she is going to be honored with a presidential citizens medal on friday. bill, i just want to check in first to see how you're doing as, you know, a grieving loved one who lost his dear wife, mary. how are you? >> we're fine. my daughters and i are -- we have our moments. good moments, bad moments, good days, bad days. two days ago would have been mary's birthday, so that was a little bit of a rough slide that day, but we're doing it day by day. >> i bet. did you, by any chance, hear what the president said in the state of the union regarding gun control and did you have an opinion about what he said? >> i did watch the state of the union address last night, and again, one of the reasons why i put my efforts behind the sandy hook promise, as well as the foundation for my wife, is because i believe that a multifaceted approach to this whole situation is what is warranted. and that's what the sandy hook promise is all about, talking about not just gun control, talking about mental health, talking about school safety and parenting. i think it's something that needs to be fought on all fronts. >> and interesting that you say that, because mary, your late wife, was the school psychologist. so obviously mental health of her students and the well-being of people at her school would be paramount to her. remind us of what she did on that day. what information you have about what she did. >> i still don't have all the information. i do know that she was one of a number of people in a room holding a ppt that day. and she and dawn and natalie went out into the hallway at the sound of the gunfire and dawn and mary did not make it back. >> so sorry as we come up on that two-month mark. when you hear about gun control and obviously this is a huge issue, it was before, but even more now, did you feel a certain way before the shooting and now drastically different or no? regarding that issue? >> i wouldn't say drastically different, and i'm not an expert in any aspect of guns. i'm not a gun owner, never have been, and probably never will be. but i do think that i am a deep believer in the constitution, as well as the second amendment. but i do also believe that we're in a little bit of a different day now than it was when the second amendment was drawn up and it was a matter of reloading and refiring a musket versus the amount of shots that were fired off in a very short period of time at sandy hook. it's almost incomprehensible even in today's modern age. >> so your issue is more about the types of guns that we are allowed to have legally, not about the people who are getting weapons illegally? >> again, i think it's a much broader topic than just that. i think we need to have a little bit of a cultural change here, and i think a grassroots movement is the way that's going to get done, because it is really more of a marathon than a sprint, and i realize there's forces on either side that would like to see something done and done very quickly. my experience and my observations is that doesn't last very long. >> two months is not very long at all after something so horrible happening to a town. suze suzydeyoung is with us. the sandy hook promise was supposed to be a discussion about what to do, but also you guys have an idea about how to let people in newtown, even on valentine's day know that the rest of us are thinking about them. >> exactly, robin, yes. newtown received such an outpouring of support after the shootings. cards and letters by the thousands. our town hall is filled with poxes and boxes of them. this was meaningful not just for here in newtown and the families impacted, but the people who sent them. to this is an opportunity to continue feeling like they're doing something and it's called 1 million hearts for newtown. if you go on the sandy hook promise website, you can choose from a variety of valentine's and share them via facebook, via twitter, a multitude of ways and it's a way to keep the conversation going, to extend that support. you can also take the promise, the sandy hook promise, which is on the website. and it's a way to just continue that support. >> and you know what? you certainly still are on the minds of many of our viewers and people in america. bill, we're thinking about you, and thank you so much, suzy, for letting us now how to let people in newtown know they're still on our minds. ap