Maritime attorney Jim Walker estimates that around 40% of man overboard incidents on cruise ships involve alcohol. Big surprise there as cruise ships have a lot of booze on board. With all those people partying and drinking, someone is bound to topple over.

Walker also says that 50% of overboard incidents are “mysteries”. Many of those cases do involve foul play and being out on sea makes it difficult to investigate. However, he says that, “The most likely scenario we have seen are men throwing women overboard”.

Unless the ship is still very close to shore, you’ll be swimming in complete darkness should you fall overboard at night. That won’t make the rescue crew’s job any easier. Stay away from the rails, especially when you’ve had one too many drinks.

Trying to find a person who fell into the ocean is much harder than people think. But trying to spot a person in rough seas is way more difficult since the water is choppy. Try not to fall off but if you do, pray for calm water.

Cruising to the Bahamas gives you better chances of survival as compared to a cruise in Alaska. Falling into cold water can instantly kill because of cold shock response. That sudden icy coldness makes a person take an involuntary gasp, which would make them inhale seawater and eventually drown.

60% of deaths in cold waters occur in the first few minutes, according to survival expert Mike Tipton.

And even if you survive the initial shock, hypothermia could set in within 30 minutes. Keep your limbs close to your body while exerting as little energy as possible.

“Try to stay still and float,” Tipton advised. Learn to curl up in a fetal position to help keep the body insulated and calm.

Now with warm water, the problem you would have are sharks.

The ship won’t immediately turn around and come back for whoever fell overboard. Sarah Kirby fell off a Carnival cruise so her friend Rebecca spoke to the captain to turn the ship around, but the problem was Rebecca didn’t actually see Sarah fall, so the captain refused until he was sure that Sarah actually did fall over.

Luckily for Sarah, she was rescued after two hours in the water.

A man fell off a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in 2015 and nobody noticed. Lucky for him another Carnival cruise ship was traveling along the same route so they picked him up. There is technology that can detect when a person falls off a ship, but cruise lines are not legally required to install the device.

Cruise ships are massive, meaning a person could fall from as much as 10 stories up. And most of us know that a belly flop is like hitting concrete. A broken bone is a common injury, plus having the wind knocked out of you can cause drowning.

The number of people falling off cruise ships every year is quite low, but the percentage of those rescued alive is also pretty small. Most of them are never found. No one really realizes that they are missing until it’s too late. Then you have unpredictable sea conditions that can prevent rescue crews from moving out or even spotting them.