Cruise Passenger Who Jumped To Death Has Been Identified
Authorities have identified the cruise passenger who jumped off a Royal Caribbean cruise last week after an argument with his dad, the New York Post reports.
Levion Parker, 20, was a former high school football player and avid hunter in North Port, Florida. The release of his identity comes shortly after the Coast Guard called off its search.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office revealed that Parker has been missing since he jumped overboard on April 4.
The 20-year-old jumped before his brother and father on the cruise to Cuba and the Bahamas’ Grand Inagua Island.
Fellow passenger Bryan Sims reports that Parker jumped off the 18-story Liberty of the Seas after arguing with his father.
According to Sims, he had hung out with Parker and his brother in the hot tub until 3:30am on April 4.
“It was standing room only. He sat right beside me the whole time; he was pretty drunk,” Sims said. As we were walking from the hot tub back to the elevators, his dad and brother were walking towards us. His dad was fussing at him for being drunk, I guess. When we got to them, he said to his dad, ‘I’ll fix this right now.’ And he jumped out the window before us all,” Sims said.
Sims recounted the horrific incident in an interview with the New York Post.
“It was literally 8 to 10 feet in front of me. The ship was moving pretty fast cause it was during the night, and we were traveling a long distance. We were screaming, and his dad was calling everyone to stop the ship,” Sims said. “From what I’ve heard, it takes about a mile to get the ship stopped and turned around. Lots of crew were up top, and they started launching the smaller boats to search after we got turned around and back to the area, I’m assuming.”
Royal Caribbean said it immediately sprang into action and launched search boats to look for him with help from the U.S. Coast Guard.
According to Daily Mail, Parker’s father owns an air conditioning business, and the family was on the cruise as guests of Florida-based air conditioning wholesaler Tropic Supply.
