Patricia Tate
Cruise Ship Passenger Injured In Belize
January 31, 2007
Patricia Tate
Date: Janauary 31, 2007
Cruise Bruise: Injury
Bruise Location: Belize
Age: 60
Home Town: Kansas
Cruise Line: Princess Cruises
Ship: Grand Princess
Details:
While the Tourism Village is known as a hang-out for drug dealers and cruise ship passengers looking to score illegal drugs, it now is known for severely injuring a cruise ship passenger there to enjoy her port of call.
While at the Tourism Village with her husband Jean, Patricia Tate had her pelvis fractured in two places as a heavy steel gate at the Belize location suddenly fell on her.
James Nisbet, manager of Fort Street Tourism Village, said “It did not come down completely on the woman, I am very thankful for that. It brushed her as she was walking by on the street since she wasn’t that close to the gate. It seems that she did get a pretty severe hit on her hip and she has gotten some abrasions, as far as we can tell, on her elbows.”
Nisbet added, “This is an accident, we dealt with it immediately. I am sure that the passenger will understand that it was an accident. They are here to have a good time, they are not here to make trouble for anybody, so to speak, and she understood that it’s an accident.”
It is the first time that the gate has hit a tourist, according to Nisbet. Guides in front of the Village said that this was actually the third time that one of the Village’s gates has fallen. Nisbet said he is aware of the incidents and they are the trying to rectify that and other problems in the area.
Tate was rushed to Universal Health Services (UHS) for treatment of her injuries from the accident.
Tate was originally said to have suffered a broken hip. Doctors said that after remaining immobile for twenty-four to forty-eight hours she would be medivaced home to Kansas.
But, later she and her husband learned her pelvis was fractured in two places.
Eight days later she was still at UHS. Mr. Tates says that the reason she was still at UHS is because the Village's owners say it's too expensive and refused to pay for the trip to Houston, Texas where she would get further treatment before heading home. That trip expense was quoted as $21,000.
Instead, the couple was looking to book a business class seat on a commercial airline, which would take them to Oklahoma. From there, an ambulance will drive Mrs. Tate to Wichita.
The premium seat is required to give the patient more room to rest on the flights. According to Jean Tate, it will be three to six weeks before his wife is able to walk again
Tate, who could not walk or sit up properly, was seen in news photographs in a wheelchair boarding a Continental flight to Houston.
