Baby slips from her grandfather's arms on cruise ship, dies

Pic courtesy/Twitter/Cathy Moore

In a tragic incident, an 18-month-old girl fell to death from the 11th storey of a cruise ship in Puerto Rico. The little girl was playing with her grandfather in a kid's area on the 11th floor of Freedom of the Seas at the time of the freak accident. "Chloe wanted to bang on the glass like she always did at her older brothers' hockey games. Her grandfather thought there was glass just like everywhere else, but there was not, and she was gone in an instant," Michael Winkleman, a Miami attorney who's representing the girl's family, said in a statement.

The toddler and her extended family were vacationing together aboard the Freedom of the Seas cruise ship, operated by the Royal Caribbean cruise line. Both her sets of grandparents, her younger brother and her parents were on board the ship at the time. "You have a wall of windows with one hidden hole," said Winkleman. "Unknowingly, the grandfather placed the girl on the wood railing before the wall of windows, believing Chloe will bang on the glass and the next thing he knows, she's gone," added the attorney.

According to reports, the grandfather identified as Salvatore Anello, is also believed to have slipped while holding the infant by a window. There is a spa, fitness center and bars on the 11th deck and the toddler fell onto the concrete dock below, reports St. Lucia news. The girl had a hard landing on the concrete of the Pan American dock in San Juan and died in hospital shortly after being admitted. The South Bend Police Department in Indiana said in a statement, 'The South Bend Police Department offers its sincerest condolences to Officer Alan Wiegand and his family during this difficult time following the tragic loss of their child while in Puerto Rico. The department asks the community to pray for the entire Wiegand family as they grieve and to respect their privacy.' The girl would have turned two in December, stated the family.

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