@OBNurseNH posted this yesterday elsewhere and it sounds like Dad put the kid on the railing…
Yeah word on the street is he put the child up on the railing to take photos and the kiddo fell off 
He dove in and saved the child and the crew of the Dream saved them
Reports are they are banned for life from DCL for disregarding safety rules and regulations
Oops. Not sure how I missed it.
Putting kid on railing? Absolutely crap move. 
Diving in after him? At least shows on some level he wasn’t a complete ass.
Wow, dumb move. How old was the child?
Woo if AI is correct 5 years old. Who does that with a 5 year old? I am glad he dove in after or this probably wouldn’t have ended the way it did.
I had seen 4, but either one of those ages I think it’s still a very lucky break. To fall and still be able to swim/tread in the wake of a cruise ship seems like a miracle to me. I have a 6 year old who can swim relatively well and I wouldn’t want him to be tested in that scenario.
I saw this all over the FB groups yesterday and at first I was sure it was spam or AI. But then I started seeing it in several groups with several real-seeming people relaying first-hand account. And then USA Today did an article with a statement from Disney, so it turns out, it’s very real.
Early on (like the very first few posts I saw), there was one anonymous poster say that “they maybe heard” this and so far all I have seen is that same language, no one coming forward as a first-hand witness saying definitively yes she was put on the railing for a picture or no, it was something else. So I am hesitant to say this is the conclusion. But knowing how hard it would be for any kind of child to just fall over, it was something like this. Unfortunately.
I have seen similar chatter.
It was a miracle they came out of it to tell the tale. The ship was going slow enough, the MOB signal worked as intended. And nothing dangerous was waiting them in the water to prevent a rescue. Truly a miracle.
And hopefully whatever the circumstances were that led to her falling over, they have learned a valuable lesson in regarding heeding precautions, from now on.
I have seen 4, 5 and 6. So it’s that age range. None of my kids at that age were (or are) even comfortable in anything deeper than their waists, let alone, confident swimmers. There’s no way. But I also do not let them climb anything near any railing, next to the ocean or any kind of height.
I only posted in Uncensored. It’s where I spend most of my time
OK here’s the thing: I would not want to find out if I could survive that okay??
It gives me a bit more than a little bit of anxiety to even think about it
There is decent video here. She looks definitely older than 4. Perhaps even older than 6 to me.
YES! I keep my feet on the ground next to railings and when it’s windy, don’t even think about trying to look over or extand any part of me over any railings. Makes Jeff’s distance from and hesitance about railings absolutely a fantastic idea.
Even a strong swimmer could fail to collect themselves enough to avoid drowning. I am beyond astonished this ended well.
Ah - that thread is entirely too big for me. Now it makes sense I missed it!
Luckily the water didn’t look terribly choppy in those videos. It is easier to float in sea water so that’s helpful for treading water too. I think the biggest risk would have been hitting something on the way down (there are places where those lifeboats stick out especially) or how you hit the water from that high up. I would imagine the girl might have landed on her back which ouch. She did look older than 4 to me too but I could see a tall 5 or 6. But for the kid, treading water for what did it say 20 minutes in waves woooh. Again, I’m glad Dad jumped in at least. One of the lifeguard trainings I had to do when I was a teen was a hold a 5 lb brick and tread water with just your legs for 5 minutes. That’s a workout. Imagine holding a 50 lb kid and doing it for twenty in waves!
I think a big risk would be the kid panicking and taking Dad down and thus both of them going down. 20 minutes is a LONG time!
My son and I jumped into a very cold lake once and we were both I think a little stunned and he grabbed onto me and I started going down. Luckily he was wearing a life jacket so I shoved him off with everything I had. Felt terrible and went against instinct but that’s how people drown trying to rescue others.
exactly.
what a nightmare. literally. I hope Jeff isn’t reading any of this!
And apparently not so high enough that hitting the water didn’t break every bone in the body.
Spoiler: He’s reading this. 
In a way it is validating to read that this can happen so my fear is not completely unfounded.
On the other hand … I’m going to have a hard time blocking this from my head every time we’re near a railing.