Cruise Ship 101: How I died
This is a part of my series all about working on cruises. Click here if you want to catch up or read on for a funny story about death.
In my previous post, I wrote all about crew drills and spoiler alert I actually died in one of them… but what happened and how did I live to tell the tale? Confused? All will be revealed.
Let’s set the scene
One day, we had our usual entertainment team meeting where they talk a bit about who we’ve got on board that cruise, give out any notices and tell us what a great job we’re doing. Out of the blue, the production manager told us that this week’s crew drill is going to be a little bit different. The scenario for this week was an entertainment party gone wrong and they cooked up an idea involving fire, smoke machines and a lot of injured people. We were given different injuries to act out ranging from cuts, bruises, and mild concussion through to full-on death. We even went as far as googling all the symptoms so we knew what to do!
The day of drill came and we were told to head straight to the theater to get into position. There had been an actual crew party the night before so a lot of people were pretty hungover. A few people got the lucky job of playing dead straight away…they got to wear a sticker saying ‘dead’ and they could sit there slumped over in a corner for an hour or so and maybe take a nap.
(Fun fact: if you actually die in an emergency situation, it’s highly likely that your body will be left behind)
And the Academy Award for Best Actor goes to…
I was initially down as someone with mild injuries and concussion but they told us to get worse as time went on. A few of us went to one of the backstage dressing rooms to set up a proper scene: I fell over a broom, hit my head on the table and was lying there dazed and confused. In the same room, there was one of my bandmates sat frightened and hiding in a cupboard as well as a production cast member lying on the floor with a broken leg. We were just generally chatting until the drill started and I really wasn’t prepared for what happened next…
The alarm sounded and an announcement said about there being a fire in the theater. Within a couple of minutes, we heard shouting a few metres away which was our cue to get into character. Before I knew it, the door slammed open and a handful of guys wearing fire-fighting suits and oxygen masks burst into the room. Right on cue, the cast member (who until a few moments before had been casually doing her nails) turned on the water works and became hysterical, screaming at the top of her voice about being scared and pleading with them not to leave people behind. Two of these guys in suits came over to me on the floor and started firing questions at me, asking if I knew where I was, what had happened etc. Having ‘hit my head’, I slurred my words, not making any kind of sense. I can’t believe we weren’t nominated for the Oscars.
Death
Two of the firefighters took the two others in the room outside but I stayed in character, put my head back and closed my eyes. I could hear the unmistakable Greek accent of the safety officer as he walked in and asked the remaining fire crew about my condition, a suspected head injury. The safety guy threw a blanket over me and absolutely deadpan said, “This man is dead. Well? Say a prayer or something!” and I heard the guys in suits move onto the next room to check more people over.
Once they’d gone, the safety guy took the blanket from me and tapped me on the arm. I opened my eyes and he had the biggest smirk on his face, blatantly trying to stifle his laughter before telling me what a good acting job I did. From then on, we just got to hang around a bit until the drill was over. They did promise us a meal in one of the restaurants on board as a thank you for doing so well but that never happened in the end.
This was what’s known as a mass casualty drill which aims to test the response times of the crew if there was a massive incident involving a lot of injured people. Someone later told me how one of the nurses was in tears because the safety officer told them their response wasn’t quick enough but overall, they were pretty pleased with how it went down. I can safely say this is definitely one of those things I never imagined I’d be doing when I took the job as a cruise ship musician. I died but I lived to tell the tale…
Tripadvisor review: 10/10 — would definitely die again.
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