A 20-year-old football player jumped to his death from the 11th deck of a cruise ship after getting into an argument with his father.
The Broward County Police has since identified the man as Levion Parker, from North Port, Florida, He was officially declared missing when the U.S. Coast Guard was unable to recover his body.
Levion, who graduated high school in 2022, was on the Royal Caribbean cruise ship with his father and brother when the incident happened. His father, who owned an air conditioning business, had invited his employees on a trip to celebrate their 50th anniversary.
According to one passenger, Bryan Sims, the brothers had gotten out of the hot tub at approximately 3:30 a.m., after which Levion got into a ‘drunken spat’ with his father. The 20-year-old told him”[he’ll] fix this right now’ and jumped out a sliding window on the 11th deck.
Bryan, who witnessed it happen, said they immediately started to yell for them to stop the ship. However, since it was late at night, the cruise ship was moving quite fast and took a while to stop and turn around.
As soon as they went back, members of the crew immediately launched smaller boats into the water to search. search for Levion.
Bryan said he had been chatting with Levion and his brother in the hot tub just minutes before the incident. They had been in the standing room together and had chatted about different things, with Levion telling him he worked on various boats such as yachts in Florida.
According to Bryan, Levion and his brother left the hot tub sometime between 3:30 and 3:45 a.m. Not long afterward, he also left the hot tub and was walking back to his room from the front of the cruise ship when he saw Levion’s brother and dad coming from near the escalators.
His father was allegedly fussing at Levion for being drunk when the 20-year-old decided to jump out the window.
When the alarm was raised, the cruise ship was nearly 60 miles from the coast of the Dominican Republic.
According to one passenger, who wrote about their experience on Reddit, the ship announced the incident over the PA system in the morning while everyone was eating breakfast and the room immediately went quiet.
Another passenger, Amy Fouse, described the morning as ‘somber’ and said many people had left their rooms to look at the waters, hoping to help find the man.
While the U.S. Coast Guard was unable to locate his body, Levion’s father remains hopeful that his son is alive. He also criticized Royal Caribbean for serving his son alcohol as the family typically does not drink.
The family is currently consulting lawyers and will be releasing a public statement shortly.
