Senator, no. And it would be very simple to simply just add, oh, by the way, our medical infirmary is on yada, yada floor. We had no idea where to go. The obvious question is, if you had this information, that might have helped, right . If we had the information, we could have saved her life. You know, someone should have given her cpr. Okay. Well, ive got more questions but my time is up for my first round so i go to senator begich. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman, and i appreciate the opportunity to have you all here today and thank you for sharing your story. Let me ask you, and i think you gave some suggestions, if i remember my lineup in my writing here. You had suggested aed machines should be more visible or available. Im not sure if thats the right word. Tell me what you mean by that. Weve been told that carnival does have defibrillators, aeds, but they keep them locked up because they are afraid that the passengers may steal them. Okay. So and your comment about cpr training to make sure that employees or all employees or employees related to security, or help me understand what youre thinking there, too. At the very least, security when people are coming back on board from excursions. And there is part of the proposal that the chairman has is to make sure theres Information Available to potential passengers or customers. Let me ask you a question. When you were researching your desire, was this your first cruise or second or we had been doing this for years. So youre a cruiser . Used to be. Alaska, we have a lot of cruise ships so i understand. When you go look for a cruise, just tell me how you go about that when you want to go. Ill be honest, i have a cousin that organizes our family reunions so she picks it out and we all basically chip in to buy the tickets. So do you maybe i may not be able to ask you. Maybe i can ask one of the other two this question. Im trying to find out, when you go online i have not done a cruise. I am very familiar with cruises, let me make that very clear, with over a million passengers coming to alaska, from the small cruises, big disney cruises, princess, disney, so forth. Ive been on many of the ships but have not done a fullscale cruise. When you go online to look up what you want to do, do you in your mind, are you looking for not only what your location is, what youre interested in, but do you decide, geez, i want to know how safe this cruise is . Does that come across . Is that one of the thoughts that you have . You assume that if youre leaving out of a u. S. Port, that you have u. S. Health care and, well, safety, period. It was just an assumption. Heres where im trying to go and anyone can answer this and i appreciate the chairmans piece of legislation. But in it it talks about putting a lot of the information on the department of transportation website. My guess is that is not a place you would go to if youre going to look up a cruise and think about the safety of a cruise. I mean, if it didnt you see where im going, in other words . Yes. If youre going on to a cruise site and you think you want to go on to a cruise to the mediterranean and you wonder how safe that cruise is. Lets say that is your question. Is your first instinct to go to d. O. T. s website . No. Where would that be . I think all of us would go to travelocity, expedia, cruise. Com, Something Like that. The assumption is there just like with air travel that i thought regulations were in place. I thought a corporation as large as carnival, you know, with the reputation, i just assumed that they would have great Safety Measures in place on ships of that size. I was naive. No. I understand that. Im just trying to figure out what im worried about, and ive told the chairman this, adding another layer of information but then the customer has no idea where that information is. Maybe they could put something on expedia saying go to this site for im trying to figure out what is the better well, definitely every cruise line needs to have an updated reporting on their website and in regards to the transportation, to me that would follow along with airline or train or if i was a consumer looking for something that involved all different types of transportation and incidents that occurred but the regular consumer may go to that Royal Caribbean and carnival website or even a travel but you should be able to know what type of crimes when youre planning your family vacation. The Television Commercials give you this false sense of let your kids go and have fun and do what you want to do while youre on the cruise. I feel that the different crimes need to be reported and i feel all of them need to be reported, not just if they are open but if never closed. Do you think that should be the case for all types of transportation . I dont know. For a family after what ive learned for what i didnt know, because i had the false sense when i left out of san pedro, los angeles, i thought i was taking all of my rights with me and didnt know it was flown under liberian flag and they were the ones that the law was under. Thank you very much. Thank you, senator begich. Senator blumenthal . Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you for championing this bill which i am very, very proud to cosponsor. Thank you for having this hearing which gives us an opportunity to really not only express our support and sympathy but also to make you a part of the crusade for this legislation which will really, in a sense, make something good come of your horrific experiences. And i have a family who is a constituent family in greenwich who suffered very tragically a loss that in some ways is reminiscent of yours, a loss that is still with them. George smith, iv vanished, literally disappeared sometime overnight going into july 4th of nine years ago. He remains missing since 2005. There was blood on the ship when it went into a harbor. The crime scene was never secured, let alone adequately investigated. His death remains a mystery today. Much to the understandable consternation of his family. His death is with us still in connecticut. It is a grievous reminder that the rights of people who suffer as victims of crimes while at sea are completely and inadequately protected, as miss dishman, you have reminded us so graphically. Thats the reason that these kinds of limitations on liability make a mockery of the implicit promises that are made to passengers on cruise ships, that they will be kept safe. Thats the minimal obligation that a cruise ship has to its passengers, to keep them safe. It cant guarantee that they will be happy, that they will always be celebratory, that the weather will always be good, but to keep them safe is a minimal obligation. In each one of your instances and examples, the cruise ship failed in that basic obligation, and passengers were left without remedy and without hope of real recovery, and in your instance, ms. Butler, what happened to your mother may well have been avoidable and unnecessary in its ultimate consequence. You have my special sympathy in that regard. So we are really trying to impose minimal protection on cruise ships. Thats the purpose of the cruise ship passenger protection act. It imposes standards of decency, standards of minimal, basic decency and fair dealing on cruise ship lines. Id like to ask you ms. Butler whether you have taken legal action. I note in your testimony you consulted with an attorney, and he advised you as to where you had to file suit and some of the basics of the law in this area. I wonder whether you have taken any legal action. Yes, we have. John arthur are eves and frank spagletti have picked up our case. Has he indicated to you the obstacles because of death on the high seas, its literally david versus goliath and were david. In a sense, passengers like yourself are not only on an island as the chairman indicated, passengers are not only on an island in the high seas, but its a lawless island. Exactly. Ms. Dishman, if i may ask you, have you taken any legal action . Yes, i did. Has your lawyer advised you as to obstacles that are in your way because of the inadequacy of the law . Yes, and i i experienced several different challenges and things that occurred in regards to my case. And ms. Ware and mr. Grisham, let me ask you the same question. I know youre an attorney. Let me ask if youve taken action on behalf of your client. Indeed i did. My clients case was settled for a handsome sum, i must say just recently. I would comment on ms. Butlers situation that i litigated a similar case for seven years involving the anoxic brain injury to a 26yearold third year medical resident from ohio who collapsed on a treadmill on board the ship in the presence of the Fitness Center director who took no steps at all to resuscitate her, and there was a factual dispute over the length of time she was down without any defbi ration,. And there are International Treaties that require crew members to be trained in cpr. The position that the cruise lines take is the training is only advisory, theyre not required to use it, and its discretionary as to whether or not they want to use it and federal maritime law is that theyre not legally responsible if they dont use it. And they didnt use it in this case, and this young woman who a a brilliant career ahead of her essentially lives the life of a vegetable today, with no recovery. Thank you. Ms. Ware . Yes, i have taken legal action. And i did not know that by signing that ticket i was giving up all my rights, according to carnival, for competition. Mr. Chairman, again my thanks for having this hearing. Im going to ask that a letter from my connecticut colleague congressman jim heinz be entered into the record in support of this legislation, and that concludes my questioning. Im out of time, but i really want to thank you again for being here today. Thank you. Thank you, senator blumenthal. There are a lot of questions, a lot of questions. The you know, the thing that amazes me is you have a very profitable industry. They make a lot of money. They are very popular, but i think their popularity will continue to increase. Many people have a pleasant experience. They pay virtually no taxes in the United States, even though theyre based in miami and a couple other places. Everybody thinks theyre getting on an american ship, but theyre getting on a panamanian, or its always registered in some other country where there are no taxes and there is no sense of accountability or responsibility. And i say to myself why is it that they are so resistant to making some basic changes on things which are so obviously going to come back to haunt them . We understand that, you know, 90 plus or whatever of the whether its a 3,000person boat or a 6,000, and i think theyre now building them 6 to 7,000 passengers. Why if youre making the money, you dont have to pay taxes, you dont pay the coast guard for when they come to bail you out and drag you or when the fbi is involved, you dont pay them. They have a free ride. They make a lot of money. They have a very good future, so why not, as a matter of business sense forget humanity for the moment, but just as a matter of business sense, wouldnt they take steps to clear up some of these problems weve been talking about . I mean, i remember when my wife and i i had never done cpr, and our children were in high school. We went and took a lesson in cpr, which i got through, and i think probably three days later i couldnt have repeated what i did, because there wasnt a focus. There wasnt the same focus, because it was all something that might or might not happen. Why dont they make these voluntarily make these things . Why dont they inform you . And on i remember ive said this a number of times in this committee, i come from a state with a lot of coal, and coal is a dangerous occupation, but its one where miners can be kept safe if you ventilate the mines and you Pay Attention. Operators for the most part dont, they just get the coal out, and the miners take their losses and get black lung and die from black lung. But the Companies Continue to be profitable. I dont understand why the cruise industry doesnt spend the money to fix some of these problems, because it would inure to their benefit, and would protect them from people like me and senator blumenthal and others who are determined to make sure they do what they should be doing and will do that, no matter how many years it takes. They just push us away. They dont want to talk. They dont want to discuss, just like they didnt want to react to any of your situations. In modern society, if youre in bankruptcy, you know, that argues for not doing anything, but if youre not in bankruptcy, youre making a lot of money and these are really good people that you have, why wouldnt you do that . I simply dont understand that. That sense of frustration, the sort of corporate mentality of youre from the federal government, dont do anything about this. What youre doing is talking about regulation. Well, yeah, we do regulation, and we did it on the airlines. When pilots were flying way over their limit of being alert and they had a big airplane crash in lackawanna, new york, wherever that is. A lot of people were killed. A twin engine, this style, not jet, and the pilots had gone a long time without sleep. So we put on requirements. They have to have before they get on an airplane to fly, they have to have an eighthour sleep. If they dont sleep, okay, they dont sleep, but they have to have that time to be able to sleep, with the time on each side to prepare for that and to get up from that. Thats not a if thats government running rough shot over an industry, thats just not true, that is just not true. Its just not true. Its common sense protection of passengers. The airlines are the safest thing you possibly can run on. You wouldnt know that Reading International news recently. You stay away from certain countries and airspaces, but i dont understand why they wont do it. So the one of the reasons weve had this hearing today and youve been patient enough to put up with it and answer questions and tell your stories, is to put certain colleagues on this committee in a position where they need to help. And one of our colleagues said, well, we should this is a separate bill and you shouldnt attach it to the coast guard bill. Everybody knows that the coast guard bill is a bill that youve got to pass. The cruise ships want the coast guard bill to pass. But if you separate them, the coast guard bill will pass, the cruise ship bill will get flushed down the toilet. So you dont allow that to happen. You hold them accountable. Its done in life, its done in business, its done in family situations. You have to take responsibility. So ive got a lot of questions here. But i dont feel the need to ask them, because most of them have been in part responded to. This whole idea of a hotel versus a city, you know. Its mystifying. When we had our last hearing, with the representative of clia which is their lobbying organization, sat right where youre sitting, ms. Ware. You may want to move. And just dismissed it all. Were doing everything we possibly can. People have a responsibility for their own safety. Well, thats true, but you know when General Motors is discovering that when certain things dont work in gm cars, the entire nation gets interested, theyre pulled before congress and they have to end up paying a whole lot of money to change their ways and to learn how to run a company with the consumer in mind. Ill give you one final example. People often dismiss people who are trying to help consumers, protect consumers. This committee used to be kind of a commerce committee. It was more business oriented. Now weve tried to make it people oriented, consumer oriented. Thats what its meant to be. I give you this just to contemplate, because it sounds so stupid, but it affects peoples lives directly. Its so nasty. People move, so they call a mover. Not in all cases, but in some cases the mover comes and they sign a contract. They load all their belongings onto the van. The mover goes five miles and goes into an alley and calls them up and says were going to triple your price. Sorry about that, were going to triple your price, you have to pay us three times than the contract you signed. You can go get a lawyer if you want, but youre not going to get your furniture back, because you dont know where we are. Its a horrible thing. You just dont let that stuff pass by. So were making life more difficult for them and better for the consumers. I dont know. I mean you all made a trip with good spirits, with good thoughts, with enthusiasm and ran into terrible problems and there was nobody to help you. If you had been going on a little row boat, that would have been one thing. But you were going on a huge corporations ship who had all the experience and the wherewithal, the money, to solve your problems if you ran into them. But they just didnt. The tent city concept that you were talking about. I mean, thats famous throughout the world now, because it was such a vile thing to do to people. Corporations have to be responsible. This committee exists, as do others in other areas, to do oversight to find out if theyre carrying out their businesses properly, with care. Some mistakes can happen, we understand that, but when theres this attitude of just neglect and i was asking behind me and im not sure of the answer, but i sort of remember the last hearing, that when you signed the ticket with that invisible print, that in many pages, you give away the liability and all the rest of it, your ability to have recourse, but i believe and if im wrong, but this is what i remember it was in the signing of the ticket. After your signature was on the ticket, it was then that you were able to not take, you know you were able to take the sticky covering of the next page which had that liability clause, which of course you werent going to look at and couldnt read it even if you decided you wanted to, and then you could see it, if you could see it. Its awful behavior, if it was true. Im not saying it was true. I remember that is the case, but i may be wrong. But i dont have to be right about that. Because what happened to you was just simply wrong in a modern society from corporations that are doing well, or are on the upswing and have every right to want to make people have a happy experience and make sure that they do. Everybody knows that not everything works out the way it should. There will be problems. , you know, four days waiting, stranded, a mother who didnt get any attention and a 15yearold girl who gets raped, in your own case. I mean, its just you dont let stuff like that pass. Particularly if it happens with a certain degree of consistency. So thats why weve had this hearing, and its all in the record. Everything you said is all in the record. That bill, if were going to pass a coast guard bill, which i tell you those cruise lines want, because they need that coast guard, and our coast guard is so broke, it has ships that are very, very old, but theyre still functioning and still used by the cruise ship lines. The minority leader asking, why