A parent and her child have been rescued by cruise workers after going into the water alongside a cruise ship while docked.
While details of what happened are limited, a viral video shows a child being pulled from the water alongside Carnival Sunrise, shortly followed by a woman.
It isn’t clear what happened although a caption on the video claims that the woman is the child’s mother, and that she jumped into the water to rescue her child.
A Brave Rescue
The video is filmed on a neighbouring cruise ship at Celebration Key, and it starts with the rescue already underway.
Crew members are frantically keeping watch over the side of the ship, with a life ring thrown in to help them, while more crew members arrive with a ladder to hang over the side of the pier.
The child is shortly brought up, before being handed to presumably another family member and wrapped up for warmth. Soon after, the woman – understandably emotional – makes it back onto the pier herself, and is hugged by other members of her travelling party.
Onlookers can be heard applauding the efforts of the rescued guests and the crew, with shouts of encouragement and congratulations once the rescue was successful.
While there’s no official confirmation of what happened, it seems likely that the child fell off the edge of the pier before their parent jumped in to help keep them safe until rescue.
And despite there being no official statement on the condition of either the child or the adult, both seemed to be without serious injury, though the onboard medical teams will no doubt have assessed them further.
Similar Pier And Overboard Incidents
While dramatic, this type of incident is not entirely without precedent, particularly when ships are docked and guests are moving between the pier and the vessel.
In November 2025, a cruise passenger received an unscheduled swim after falling from the pier beside a ship operated by Norwegian Cruise Line during an unexpected call to Nassau. The ship had originally been scheduled to visit Great Stirrup Cay, but rough seas made tendering unsafe, forcing a diversion to the Bahamian capital.
As guests were returning to the ship that afternoon, a man reportedly lost his footing and fell into the narrow gap between the pier and the hull – an area lined with floating rubber fenders designed to protect both structures.
Videos shared online showed the man clinging to a life ring as bystanders shouted for help, before crew members arrived with a ladder and pulled him safely from the water within moments.
There were no reports of injury, and it was never confirmed whether the individual was a passenger, crew member, or port worker. Witnesses suggested he either slipped from the dock or misjudged his step while approaching the gangway.
More serious, though far rarer, are true overboard incidents at sea. In June 2025, a five-year-old girl fell approximately 50 feet from Deck 4 of a ship operated by Disney Cruise Line during a Bahamas sailing, prompting her father to immediately jump in after her.
A subsequent police investigation revealed the child had been asked to pose for a photo in front of an open porthole window that was not fitted with glass or plexiglass.
The mother mistakenly believed the opening was sealed, and the child fell straight through. Surveillance footage corroborated the parents’ statements, and the ship’s crew launched an immediate man overboard response.
Both father and daughter were rescued within an hour. While prosecutors described the mother’s actions as negligent, they concluded the circumstances did not meet the threshold for criminal culpable negligence, and no charges were filed.
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