“Carnival Should Be Ashamed” — 4-Year-Old Airlifted From Cruise After Ingesting LSD
"I worked for Carnival in the kids' department — same thing happened."
Jul. 9 2024, Published 3:01 p.m. ET
It seems that Carnival Cruise Line has been attempting to change this image recently, as it has taken a more stringent approach to policing folks who like to party on its boats.
However, a recent incident involving a 4-year-old boy won't be doing much to help change Carnival's image when it comes to illicit substances on its ships.
A TikToker named Justin (@justinontik0k) relayed the tale that would make any parent's heart sink and stomach churn — their young son came into contact with LSD while aboard the ship.
While he interviewed the children's parents on his TikTok account in a YouTube Live, the social media user also gave a run down of what happened in a separate post on the popular social media application, which is posted below and features imagery of the young boy being airlifted off of the boat in order to seek medical attention.
Justin begins his video by speaking into the camera and stating: "Wait until you hear the reason that this 4-year-old boy is having to be airlifted off of this Carnival ship by the United States Coast Guard," he says over a green screen image over the sad scene.
"So the guy in green over here is the US Coast Guard, this right here is Carnival, and that guy right there is the little boy's father," the TikToker remarks, pointing out the man in the picture, before continuing, "And this all happened on day two of their cruise. Now what happened was this little boy went to kids club for the day."
Justin went on to relate, "Then [he] went to the candy store and then went with his mom to the jewelry store. Now, somehow in the time from the candy store till they got back to their room, this kid started to have a very bad reaction to something. The child's pupils have become dilated, he wasn't really able to speak and wasn't really able to see."
Alarmed, his father immediately decided to take his son to the infirmary to see what was up with his kid, "So the dad did what any dad would do — scooped him up and ran him to the medical area. Well, when he got there it was closed, he yelled at a couple of employees like please we're having a medical emergency, help, and all they did was point to a phone on the wall."
Justin said that the Carnival cruise staff "did nothing else to help him" aside from calling 911, before relaying what else was down, "A nurse came up and then eventually a doctor and what the doctor said is, it appears that your son is on LSD."
At this point in the video, Justin stated that he was going to have the young boy's parents on a YouTube live so they could recount the experience themselves (it was linked back up top in this article) before he went on to further discuss what happened after the dad visited the on-deck medical facility.
"After this child was examined the doctor said, well, we're gonna monitor and make sure he doesn't have any seizures, that was until about 3:00 am, and they said, well then go back to your room and then come back around 9 o'clock. At 7:30 in the morning, the child had not slept at all, couldn't sleep, was wandering around, was being pretty incoherent."
After seeing that his behavior wasn't getting any better, that's when the kid was airlifted off of the ship: "So finally the decision was made to airlift him off the ship so he could receive proper medical intervention."
The horrifying incident went on for 60 hours.
He added, "Carnival should be ashamed of the way that they handled this because there's again a lot more to this story."
One recurring question that several people had who saw Justin's video was just how in the world did this kid get into contact with LSD? He replied to one inquiring TikToker that it was apparently from a Batman sticker that was presumably laced with the stuff: "Through a Batman sticker if I’m understanding correctly"
Several other folks in the comments remarked that they were disappointed in the way Carnival handled the situation as well: "As a pediatric nurse, if unknown substances are involved, the boy should have been airlifted IMMEDIATELY to the nearest pediatric facility. 60 hours is insane!" one person wrote.
Another replied: "When I hear these medical emergencies that happen and how Carnival responds cements the deal I’ll never take a cruise with them — not once."
Distractify has reached out to Carnival Cruise Line for comment.