83-year-old grandmother kicked off cruise
We can understand people getting kicked off a cruise for drunk and disorderly behaviour or stealing, but one 83-year-old grandmother has been forced off a ship for a much more innocent reason.
Eighty-three-year-old Marguerite Hayward and her husband Fred Hayward, an 87-year-old war veteran, were enjoying a holiday in the Mediterranean when they were kicked out of their £8,000 ($14,000) suite on the Regent Seven Seas Cruises Explorer.
A day before their week-long voyage came to an end, the Haywards claim they were forced off the ship the morning after Marguerite experienced a severe panic attack brought on by her mild dementia. Despite being sedated and waking up calm, relaxed and quiet, they were abandoned in an Italian hospital, where Marguerite was left bruised, screaming for help and a $1740 medical bill. The ship departed without them.
While in the hospital, in which no one spoke English, Marguerite was given many different treatments for conditions she didn’t have and suffered “eight days of torture and starvation”. She is now recovering in a British hospital.
“They dumped us and sailed off, leading to a true nightmare of literally screaming for help and being ignored,” Fred told the Daily Mail. “This really has been the most traumatic, expensive and without exaggeration the very worst experience of my life. As one who served in the front line in the Korean War and the Suez conflict, they were doddles by comparison.”
According to the cruise company, the couple had come to a “mutual agreement” with the crew to leave the ship – a claim strongly disputed by the Haywards.
“I could not have endured it very much longer without becoming a casualty myself,” Fred explained. “What almost literally saved my life was meeting Martin, my son, who had just flown in. After seeing Marguerite, who briefly opened her eyes and tried to speak, Martin took me somewhere for a meal, the first food I had had since dinner on the ship on the evening before they decided to throw us off.
“She came back from Italy in a very poor way. Her physical injures alone include extensive bruising, damage to her heel and severe bed sores. The wound nurse told us yesterday that the bed sores would take weeks and potentially months to heal. She is still traumatised and distressed. At least now she is in good care.”