The family of a Florida man who died on a Celebrity Cruises ship and was allegedly put in a drinks cooler is suing the company for a million bucks.
78-year-old Robert Lewis Jones died on the Celebrity Equinox back in August in the middle of the high seas. When the ship docked in Ft. Lauderdale 6 days later, his wife says she learned the body of her husband of 55 years was placed in a walk-in cooler, which is used to stock beverages and keep them cold.
The lawsuit claims the body should have been placed in the cruise ship's morgue for proper care. They say as a result Jones' body was badly decomposed.
The lawsuit seems to allege the corpse was at first placed in the morgue but then moved to the cooler.
The ship docked in Puerto Rico after Jones died, and the suit claims his widow was given 2 options ... take the body off in Puerto Rico or keep it in the morgue until it returned to Ft. Lauderdale. The suit claims the crew urged his widow to keep the body on board, which she did.
When the ship docked in Ft. Lauderdale, a Sheriff's deputy came on board and the body was nowhere to be seen in the morgue. The suit claims funeral service workers found it inside a blood-splattered bag, laying on the floor of the cooler.
The body was badly decomposed because the temperature was not suitable for preserving it. The family wanted an open casket, but Jones' body was green and bloated, so they couldn't follow their long-standing family tradition.