This May 11, 2006 file photo shows the Freedom of the Seas cruise ship docked in Bayonne, N.J. Police in Puerto Rico say that on Sunday, July 7, 2019, a toddler apparently slipped from her grandfather's hands and fell to her death on this cruise ship, Freedom of the Seas, while docked in Puerto Rico. (Photo: AP)
An attorney for the family of an 18-month-old Indiana girl who fell to her death from the 11th story of a cruise ship in Puerto Rico says she plunged from a window inexplicably left open in a children’s play area.
Attorney Michael Winkleman in Miami said in a statement Tuesday that Chloe Wiegand was playing in the “kid’s water zone” on the Freedom of the Seas on Sunday when she asked to be lifted to a wall of windows lining the play area so she could bang on the glass.
He says Chloe’s grandfather lifted her, believing the window was closed, and “she was gone in an instant.”
Winkleman says the family wants to know why a window that “should have been closed securely” was open.
Royal Caribbean International hasn’t responded to messages seeking comment.
