First Carnival passenger sues

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MIAMI, Feb. 16 (UPI) -- A Texas woman filed the first lawsuit against Carnival Cruise Lines hours after the crippled Carnival Triumph arrived in Mobile, Ala., her lawyer says.

Cassie Terry, 25, of Lake Jackson called her husband after disembarking early Friday, and he got in touch with the lawyers, Brent Allison of Houston, one of her lawyers, said. Allison and lawyer Wayne Collins gave a copy of the complaint filed in federal court in Miami to the Los Angeles Times.

The Triumph, with 3,143 passengers on board, was disabled last Sunday by a fire in the engine room. The crippled vessel was off the Yucatan Peninsula at the time and had to be towed to Mobile by tugboats.

The vessel left Galveston, Texas, Feb. 7 for a four-day cruise that should have ended Monday. "Plaintiff was forced to endure unbearable and horrendous odors on the filthy and disabled vessel, and wade through human feces in order to reach food lines where the wait was counted in hours, only to receive rations of spoiled food," says the lawsuit, which Allison provided to the Los Angeles Times.

"Plaintiff was forced to endure unbearable and horrendous odors on the filthy and disabled vessel, and wade through human feces in order to reach food lines where the wait was counted in hours, only to receive rations of spoiled food," the complaint said.