Woman Sues US Cruise Line For Letting Husband's Body Rot In Drink Cooler After Heart Attack

A woman has filed a $1 million lawsuit against Celebrity Cruises, claiming that her husband's body was badly preserved in a drinks cooler- instead of the ship's morgue. The woman, named Marilyn Jones said that the employees of the cruise let the body badly decompose.

The man, Robert Jones, 78, died of a heart attack on August 15 last year while onboard the Celebrity Equinox during a Caribbean cruise, reported Guardian. The ship crew promised her that they will keep the body safe in the ship's morgue, according to the lawsuit.

Once the ship docked in Fort Lauderdale six days later, she learned that her husband's body was kept inside a walk-in cooler, which is used to keep drinks cold.

The lawsuit filed in Florida federal court said, "When the funeral services employee in Ft. Lauderdale was brought onto the ship to retrieve Mr Jones' body, his body was not located in the ship's morgue."

"Instead, Mr Jones' body had, at some time not yet known, been moved from the ship's morgue to a cooler on a different floor than the ship's morgue. The cooler in which Mr. Jones' body was found by the funeral employee had drinks placed outside of the cooler, and was not at a temperature which was sufficient nor proper for storing a dead body to prevent decomposition."

According to New York Post, the funeral service workers from Fort Lauderdale found the body inside a blood-splattered bag on a palette on the floor of the cooler.

Mr Jones' body had become bloated and green. The family couldn't have an open-coffin funeral. According to the lawsuit, it was a long-standing custom and "was what his family had desired."

The widow was given two options by the ship crew after her husband died. She could either take the body on shore in San Juan, Puerto Rico or the cruise can preserve it in the morgue until they returned to Florida. Staffers told her that the body had only a 50 per cent chance of undergoing an autopsy in San Juan and that she would have to remain there alone until the body was autopsied and embalmed, Jones said in the complaint. She chose to keep the body on the ship, The Guardian reported.

The devastated Ms Jones' said that if the cruise had informed her that the morgue was out-of-service, she could have chosen to get off in Puerto Rico with the body.

Ms Jones and her two daughters along with her grandchildren are seeking a fair trial by jury.