Hannah Smith, a 22-year-old recent Miles College graduate, has filed a lawsuit after a Caribbean cruise excursion ended with the loss of both legs. The case centers on a May 12 accident during Carnival Cruise Line’s Pearl Island Beach Escape with Lunch outing aboard the Carnival Celebration.
Smith was traveling with her friend Brooklyn Pitre to celebrate her summa cum laude graduation from Miles College in Fairfield, Alabama, when the trip turned catastrophic, according to the complaint. The lawsuit targets Carnival Cruise Line and the excursion operators after Smith says she was injured as passengers were disembarking from a catamaran-style vessel that had returned to Nassau and pulled alongside a pier.
By the time the complaint was filed, Smith had already endured more than 30 surgical procedures, including three successive amputations of her right leg that ended in a hip disarticulation. She was first taken by emergency responders to a hospital in Nassau and later airlifted to HCA Florida Kendall Hospital in Miami for specialized treatment. Keith S. Brais, whose firm is representing her, described Smith as a bright, accomplished young woman celebrating a major academic milestone when she suffered life-altering injuries, and said the firm intends to pursue accountability for the chain of unsafe decisions that led to the tragedy.
The excursion was advertised and sold through Carnival’s onboard platform and website, and payment was processed directly by the cruise line. That detail could matter as the lawsuit presses potential claims not only against the excursion operators but also against Carnival itself, including allegations of direct negligence in vetting and monitoring third-party providers and possible vicarious liability under agency principles.
The complaint also contains allegations that deepen the legal exposure around how the outing was run. It says excursion employees overserved Smith alcohol and marijuana before she boarded the return catamaran to Nassau, and that a crew member told her she could use the water near the vessel’s dive platform as a restroom. Smith entered the water during disembarkation and was pulled into a spinning propeller. The next phase of the case will turn on what discovery shows about Carnival’s control over the excursion, the operators’ handling of passenger disembarkation, and who bears legal responsibility for the sequence of events that left a young graduate permanently disabled.
