270 people. So youre urban compared to us. Okay. Let me just go right to the witnesses. Lori dishman had a very, very bad experience on a Royal Caribbean cruise in 2006. Shes also an International CruiseVictims Association board member, which means she wants to follow through on that. Ill read each of the four and then call on one by one. Phil gers extent, a lawyer who represented a 15yearold minor, 15yearold minor who was raped on a cruise ship is also on that same board and chairman also chairman of the National Center for the victims of crime. Im grateful that hes here. Amanda butter letter who i just met outside whose mother suffered a medical emergency on a carnival kus in 2013 and likely passed away likely as a result of a lack of medical care and kim ware who was a passenger on the triumph which caught fire and was stranded for four days. Now, those are easy things for me to say but they are very hard to have gone through and even talk about it. Lets get at it. Im going to call on lori dishman. And thank you so much for being here. Hello. My name is laurie dishman. Im lied to thank the committee and the hearing for inviting me to washington t is quite an honor and privilege to be here today. Senator rockefeller, i am a cruise ship rape victim. I have an experience to tell you about. A cruise line employee raped me during a vacation on a Royal Caribbean cruise to mexico. The crew member was working as a Security Guard and disco on the ship. He approached me and asked me my name a cabin number. He later snuck down to my cabin and forced his way in. I resisted and struggled. He strangled me and brutally raped me. I awoke with lig tur marks around my neck and my tampon was impacted during the brutal rape. I did not know what to do. I did not know who to turn to. There were no police on the ship. I learned. I was hesitant to report the crime because he wore a security badge. Just three days earlier i was looking forward to this cruise, the glossy brochures advertise an adventure every day and an experience. I was celebrating my birthday and with my best friend michelle. We have known each other since i was 5 years old. In the evening i would find myself in the middle of a nightmare. Michelle called the desk to report the crime. A Security Officer in the head hperser, came to the cabin and sat on the bed where the rape occurred. I tried to tell them what happened but they insisted that i prepare a written statement and sign it. They left without securing the cabin or taking me to the ship infirmary. After i finished my statement, the Security Officer took me and michelle to the infirmary. The doctor handed us two black garbage bags and asked us to go back to the room and collect the evidence. We tried to preserve hair and other items folding the pillow cases and sheets not really knowing what we were supposed to be doing. We returned to the infirmary with still all men surrounding us. It was a painful and humiliating ordeal. The ship doctor performed the rape kit and examined my neck but failed to administer antiviral medications. I was returned to my cabin after the ship ordeal and the ship infirmary. I was traumatized to be back at the scene of the crime. I could not take my eyes off the mattress, stripped of the pillow and sheets and it seemed dirty to me, it looked like i felt. I could not stop thinking about what had just happened to me over and over again. I did not know what would happen next. I just wanted to close my eyes and go home. I was eventually given three options. To get off the ship in mexico and report it to the local port authorities, to stay off the cruise ship stay on the cruise ship and report it to the fbi when we return, or fly back to l. A. And report the rape to the fbi. I opted to fly back to los angeles as soon as i could get off the ship. Once in l. A. , i was questioned extensively by the fbi and they photographed the bruisings around my neck. A few days later, the fbi boa boarded the ship together with the cruise line defense attorneys. The crew member denied even going into my cabin. He did not pass the polygraph but the fbi said it was just a she said he said case and dechined to arrest him. The department of justice declined to prosecute on that same day. The cruise ship they be set sail again full of passengers with the rapist on board. The crew member two days later changed his story and admitted going to my cabin. It was only then that the cruise line confined him to his cabin and then put a Security Guard outside his door. And then terminated his employment and flew him home to trinidad. I hired a maritime lawyer in miami. Why miami . Because even though i lived in sacramento, the cruise left from l. A. , the crime occurred in International Waters and in the ticket it says that you need to find an attorney in miami. My attorney found out many things that surprised and angered me. The Security Guard was actually a janitor who the cruise line called a cleaning specialist who is paid 550 a month. He was assigned to act as a Security Department because the cruise ships limited number of legitimate guards on its staff. He had no training or experience at all as a Security Guard. Royal caribbean records my attorney uncovered revealed an employee history which included lying, falsification of records, insubordination and anger management and he had also sexually harassed two girls six weeks before he raped me and they put him in this Security Guard uniform. We also learned that on the night in question, a witness observed him drinking beers given to him by the cruise line bartenders. Royal caribbean, pursue want to court orders that my attorney received, they studied sexual assaults back on their ships back as far as 1999 and the experts concluded that Sexual Misconduct occurred frequently. The head Security Guard who approached me in the cabin said this never happens. But the cruise line ignored what they were told and said that crimes are very rare. In 2007 i became a member of the icb board. I have testified in the past before the house of representatives in support of the cruise vessels security and safety act. Today im joined with the chairman of icv, board member and friends of icv. In closing, cruise consumers have virtually no rights or protections. I know this firsthand. I know exactly how it feels to have no rights and to be victimized by the cruise line a second time after their employee assaulted me certainly or congress can require a clear and accurate statement of our rights embodied in a ticket without incomprehensible legal mum mumbo jumdbo, hire protection under a Consumer Agency which will help us in our time of need. Thank you. Thank you very much, miss dishman. And you did that well and i know it was hard. We will have questions. But first we want to hear from Phil Gershwin who is a lawyer who represented a 15yearold minor who was raped on a cruise ship. Thank you, members of the committee. Im a lawyer in miami, florida, with more than 40 Years Experience focused for more than 40 years my law practice has focused on representing crime victims, both at sea and on land. I appreciate your participation and your willingness to listen. I will be brief and will not read from my written testimony, which states the case facts about the incident the chairman just referred to in more detail than i will mention now. And i welcome any questions the senators may ask. The cruise passenger protection act should be passed. It is far short of the needed solutions but it is the next step on the path to greater passenger safety. If you think that young women are safe on cruise ships, think again. They are not. My 15yearold autistic teenage client was not supervised like she was on land because her family thought that she was safe. They were vigilant in managing all of her activities, scrupulously and on the ship she was supervised in teen activities. On the last night of the cruise, the teen activities added early but no one told her parents. And she was gullibly led away by a predator to a stateroom where she was brutally raped and attacked by a juvenile and an adult male. This occurred two years after the cruise vessel safety and security act of 2010 was signed into law. But despite that fact, her stateroom was lysoled and cleaned before Law Enforcement could gain access to it. Security said, well, there was a mistake. We locked it out but the housekeepers somehow overrode the lockout not knowing that a crime had been committed and the evidence on the bed, clouds, and other evidence in the room was lost. Fortunately, our state legislature has had the wisdom to enact and extend jurisdiction to crimes on cruise ships when the ships leave and return from florida ports. So there were ft. Law der dalebased broward deputies standing on the pier when the ship returned to port who took custody of these two offenders and were punished under state law. But had this occurred anywhere else besides florida, they likely would have gone unapprehended and unpunished. Now, what is worse about what happened, the cruise lines not only suppress the facts but they foster a misleading Disinformation Campaign boasting that vacationers are safer at sea than they are on land. Now, in some ways, you are safer at sea. Youre not going to get hit by a car or a truck, walking in public places, nor is it likely that youre going to be shot by an armed robber because there are no vehicles or guns allowed on the ship. But sexual crimes, like the one that my innocent teenage client was the victim of, are far too common. And the risks of them are high. There are thousands of people onboard and there are no police to deter crime or to stop a crime before it harms somebody. Ship Security Officers are trained to protect ship owners, not passengers. And thats exactly what they do. The real answer, in my view, based on my lifetime of experience in this work, is that independent sea marshals should be placed on cruise ships, a trivial cost in view of the large number of people here who are assembled on these Floating City vacations. If we cant get that today, we can start now with d. O. T. Empowerment to make the risks known. Truthful disclosure of risks has been required by government for decades and it is a part of the fundamental fairness, which is the fabric of the american the american society. Full disclosures of risks is a first step toward improving safety. Very few travelers understand the legal relationship which exists in the cruise contract. As passengers cross the gangway, they surrender all legal rights to protect their own welfare, except as the cruise ticket allows them to. This is not an informed consent. The ticket doesnt explain how the legal relationship is different at sea from what we know it to be on land. And it is not semantics when we refer to the ships captain as the master. The master is just that. And the passengers have virtually no individual rights. The Cruise Line Industry Association bill of rights is illusory, empty, and meaningless. A close reading of the cruise line tickets reveal a frightening list of contractual and statutory disclaimers of any legal responsibility for harms to passengers. The tickets say the cruise line has no legal liability in port for any excursion which they arrange, which they sell to the passengers, and which they share fees with the tour operators with but they disclaim any responsibility. They say the same thing about the Physician Services that they sell in ship board medical clinics on board. But if theres medical negligence, they have no legal responsibility. There are also arcane statutory and International Maritime treaties which limit passenger rights and passenger remedies when something goes wrong on board and neither the cruise ticket nor the cruise line adequately informed the passengers of the nature or extent of what they have given up by crossing that gangway. The bill should be passed so that the outdated buyer beware business relationships at sea are replaced with truth in advertising, full disclosure, and informed consent which are the hallmarks of American Life required by government for business and industry. Until Congress Gives passengers more protections, american nationals on cruise ships are just on their own. I invite you to read my brief writt written statement which provides more details so i take no more time that is necessary now and i volunteer to assist in this process in any way that i can in the future. Thank you, sir, very much. Amanda butler, your mother suffered a medical emergency in 2013 on a Carnival Cruise. And as i indicated, probably passed away from a lack of adequate medical care. Senator rockefeller, members of the committee, i appreciate the opportunity to tell my mothers story, to share what we have learned and to offer recommendations, from our perspective, in an effort tone sure that no other family will go through what we had to experience. My mother experienced a Catastrophic Health event on a family cruise april 18th, 2013. She subsequently passed away on may 4th with the cause of death listed as a brain injury. She was a woman who loved life, loved her family. She had a general generous heart. She was a faithful and devoted wife and mother who was there to nurture her children, support her husband and provide care and kindness to many individuals in our community of columbus, mississippi. In fact, more than 800 people came from the community to her visitation. We had just returned from a short excursion on april 18th, passed through security and were planning events for the evening when she collapsed in midsentence. She had no pulse. She was not breathing. I ran to plea with the security personnel in the area but all they did was seal off the entrance and exit of the boat so nobody could see that there was a problem and an event had happened. They did not step forward, period, to help my mother and no one indicated that they were calling for help. So i ran down the corridors in an attempt to find a defibrillator or someone that could explain that we have a medical emergency. A nurse arrived after my mother had been on the ship floor for what American Physicians are estimating to be 15 minutes. The nurse had a radio but no defibrillator and no medical equipment when she arrived. She examined my mother and then she waited for a gurney to arrive. She did not initiate cpr. My mother was taken into the medical facility, located within a distance that my father and myself could have carried her, had we been told. They had to unlock the doors, turn on the lights and the computers and prepare the tiny examination room for the resuscitation process. They set up a portable defibrillator. After four cycles, her pulse did return. Nevertheless, the duration of time that she went without oxygen approached 32 minutes. Once resuscitated, we were instructed to leave the ship. We did not have the option to stay. My father went to his room with personnel to pack his bags and carnival sent their personnel into my room to gather my belongings. They made us stay on the gangway and after we got off of the water taxi, we had to wait on an ambulance to come and get her. One carnival employee accompanied us but no arrangements were made with customs to expedite us as a medical emergency. We were all processed as tourists, including my comatose mother. The carnival employee gave my father the telephone number for the Port Authority and left us completely alone in a foreign country to find our own way to transport my mother back to the United States for additional medical treatment. Carnivals current contract states that they are not responsible or liable for anything involving the welfare or safety of its passengers. The Company Makes no assurances that a physician will be available on a cruise. And it states that medical care, in fact, may not be available at all or will be delayed. The contract also states that carnival is not responsible for the actions of physicians and nurses whom it considers independent contractors. As it turned out, my mothers cardiac event was the type that had she received cpr in a timely manner, she would be here today. My mother died needlessly because humane emergency protocol was not followed or enforced. The contract was too small to read. The general public does not understand all u. S. Rights are surrendered to carnival upon entering that vessel. Had we known o, our family woul have never boarded that ship. We offer the following recommendations to improve health care. We know that some of these it items are included in the cruise safety act of 2010 but we have been informed, also, that the medical requirements of that act have been very narrowly interpreted. Our recommendations would be to modify the 2010 act to add a section on general medical care with the following requirements. Aed machines, defibrillators should be placed throughout each ship with locations clearly designated and discussed during the initial safety meeting. Cpr training and security should be required for all personnel on the ships. Personnel must be trained on how to respond to medical or emergent situations including aearth willing and summoning medical assistance to aid the passenger familiy. The english language should be the official language at the United States port of call. At a minimum, all persons should be able to understand key words, such as emergency, help, doctor. 24hour health care is necessary, given that the ships carry several thousands people per cruise. The ships physician must be available or must be on call for Immediate Response to the emergency situation. Doctors must have emergency medicine, internal medicine or Family Medicine and have at least served practicum. There have been st