The father of a 5-year-old girl who fell overboard from a Disney cruise ship off the coast of Florida did not lift her up onto the railing before the accident, authorities have said.
The “little girl was not being held, as erroneously reported on some social media sites,” the Broward County Sheriff’s Office told CBS News Miami on Tuesday, referring to speculation that the child’s father had lifted her up for a photo before she fell backwards and smacked into the ocean.
The terrifying accident happened Sunday aboard the Disney Dream cruise ship as it sailed between the Bahamas and Fort Lauderdale.
After the girl fell in, her father jumped into the ocean to save her, and treaded water for more than 10 minutes until a rescue boat approached them, cellphone video from the incident shows.
A fellow passenger also came to the dad’s defense amid the speculation, insisting that a crew member told her that the little girl scaled the protective barrier.
“The crew member who said that’s her station and she was on the fourth floor, she did say that she [the girl] was climbing up and the parents were playing shuffleboard and the dad jumped in after her,” Monica Shannon told CBS News Miami.
