Woman Dies After Falling 75 Feet Off Queen Mary
A 26-year-old woman fell 75 feet from a third-story railing on the Queen Mary in Long Beach on Monday night. She did not survive the incident.
The victim plummeted into the cold water, and her companion, a 40-year-old man, dove 15 feet into the water in an attempted rescue. He was taken to a local hospital and treated for hypothermia and minor injuries.
Details on who exactly pulled the victim from the water are hazy as several sources cite different rescuers. Here's what we've found so far.
Two Long Beach Police Department officers also jumped into the water to try to save the woman and were uninjured. Firefighters were dispatched at 8:35pm. Long Beach firefighter Steve Yamamoto told City News Service, "I have no back story on how they (the woman and the man) ended up in the water."
CBS LA reports that a Long Beach police officer and a Queen Mary staff member jumped into the water to try and save the woman. They successfully retrieved her from a narrow channel between the side of the ship and the pier.
Belmont Shore-Naples Patch reports that a Long Beach fireman clad in a wetsuit entered the water, located the victim and kept her airway open until she could be removed from the water.
The woman was transported to a local hospital where she died.
Witnesses told Patch that the woman fell after arguing with her male companion. The argument lasted about ten minutes, and a Queen Mary employee said he heard the woman say, "I don't want to live, I don't want to be with you anymore, I don't want to go on." The employee described the rest of the incident as follows.
Then, the employee said, it all happened in slow motion. He said the woman made a "motion like she was going to go over the rail and slipped.""The man tried to hang on to her, but she was heavy-set, and he couldn't hold her for very long. Then she just fell, it happened so fast. We ran towards them, and he ran down the steps to the bottom landing and jumped in."
The woman was drinking prior to her fall, according to CBS.
Further details, including the victim's name, have not been released.
