Elderly woman 'left behind' on Lizard Island found dead

There's an urgent demand for answers this morning over the death of an 81-year-old cruise passenger after she was allegedly left behind on an island during a tour.

For more, Cruising Expert Adrian Tassone joins.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
There's an urgent demand for answers this morning over the
death of an eighty one year old cruise passenger after
she was allegedly left behind on an island during a tour.
The solo traveler had been visiting Lizard Island on the
Great Barrier Reef with Coral Expeditions when it's believed she
was left behind. After an urgent search, the woman's body

(00:22):
was found on the island the next day. Joining us
now is cruising expert Adrian to Sony. Good morning, How
does something like this happen?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Adrian, Good morning, Matt.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Look, that's something that I'm really struggling with trying to
understand myself. Cruise lines in normal sort of operation will
always know who is on the ship and who is
off the ship. So if the reports are to be
believed and this woman was left behind on the island,
I really can't understand how that occurred. And that's something

(00:52):
that I think most people are questioning and trying to
come to grips with. And really there are systems in
place ross the board that should prevent that from happening.
So I don't know what happened in this instance that
led to this occurring.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
So it seems like they were on a hike. She
stopped to rest, the group went on without her, and
then the boat left. A yachtie who was listening to
the emergency radio transmission said, they seem to do head
counts for snorkelers, but not for the walkers the hikers.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Is that unusual, look, It is unusual, I think for
numbers not to be known and checked. But I think
what is important in this instance is that it is
an expedition cruise, so it's very atypical from the regular
cruise environment. This ship held a maximum of one hundred
and twenty passengers, and so I still struggle to understand

(01:45):
how a headcount was and it's conducted.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
I mean, typically you get on a cruise ship and
you scan a card that sort of is your key card.
It indicates that you're on or off the ship. And
those manifests, I understand are available across all cruise lines.
I don't know if Coral Expeditions operates in a different
manner to that, but I'm just really surprised that there's
not something more robust in place that should have prevented

(02:08):
this from happening.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, Well, a full investigation will be carried out, Adrian,
thank you very much.