More details have emerged of the final moments of a young Florida sportsman who threw himself overboard from the 11th deck of a Royal Caribbean cruise during a drunken argument with his dad.
Police in Broward County identified the missing man as Levion Parker 20, of North Port in Florida today, after the US Coast Guard abandoned its search in the waters off the Bahamas.
The cruise ship Liberty of the Seas was just hours from returning to Fort Lauderdale after a four-day cruise when dad Francel Parker caught up with Levion and brother Seth, 18, emerging from a hot tub at around 3.30am in the morning.
‘His dad was fussing at him for being drunk, I guess,’ fellow passenger Bryan Sims said.
‘When we got to them, he said to his dad, ‘I’ll fix this right now.’ And he jumped out the window in front of us all.’
Levion Parker, 20, was a high school footballer and popular sportsman from North Port, Florida
Dad Francel, pictured left, with wife Rosemary, and sons Levion and Seth, runs an air conditioning company and was on board as a guest of wholesaler Tropic Supply
The ship was ordered to stop after Levion jumped nearly 200 feet from the 11th deck of the 15-deck ship while it was 57 miles off Grand Inagua at 4am on April 4
It is unclear how Levion would have been ‘drunk’ as the minimum age to consume alcohol on Royal Caribbean ships on voyages from North America or the Caribbean is 21.
Social media posts show a popular and athletic young man who loved hunting and fishing, and played football for North Port High School before he graduated in 2022.
Sims said Levion and his brother had been chatting happily in the hot tub on the 11th deck of the 154,000 ton liner just moments before the horrific incident on April 4.
‘I had hung out with him and his brother in the hot tub until 3.30am,’ Sims told the NY Post.
‘It was standing room only. He sat right beside me the whole time.
‘We chatted about different things, and he told me that he worked on yachts and other types of boats in Florida.
‘I would say around 3.30 to 3.45am him and his brother left the hot tub. I just assumed they were headed to bed.
‘Everyone had left the hot tub by 4am and went their separate ways.
‘I got out, went to the restroom, dried off, put my shirt on and was walking from the front of the ship to the back elevators to go down to my room.
‘When I got near the back of the ship on the pool deck I noticed him his brother and dad coming out of the sliding doors there near the elevators.
‘They were walking in my direction and his dad had his arm around him and they were talking.
The 11th deck boasts an array of whirlpools, swimming pools and a ‘Splashaway Bar’
Levion had been with his brother Seth and chatting to other guests in a hot tub on the 11th deck until 3.30am on the final night of the four-day cruise
Social media pictures portray a happy and sporty young man who loved deep sea fishing
‘We chatted about different things, and he told me that he worked on yachts and other types of boats in Florida,’ passenger Bryan Sims told Dailymail.com
‘His dad was fussing at him for being drunk, I guess,’ fellow passenger Bryan Sims said, ‘When we got to them, he said to his dad, ‘I’ll fix this right now.’ And he jumped out the window in front of us all’
The layout for the back of 11th deck shows the whirlpool at the top right where Levion was bathing before throwing himself from a window next to the Splashaway Bay
‘When they got right in front of me as we were passing each other, he pulled himself away from his dad and said ‘I’ll fix this for you right now’, and that’s when he jumped out of the window.
‘It was literally 8 to 10 feet in front of me.’
‘It was one of the sliding windows by the soft serve ice cream machine.
‘The ship was moving pretty fast cause it was during the night, and we were traveling a long distance.
‘We were screaming and his dad was calling everyone to stop the ship.
‘I do know from what I’ve heard it takes about a mile to get the ship stopped and turned around.
‘Lots of crew were up top and they started launching the smaller boats to search after we got turned around and back to the area I’m assuming.’
Levion’s father owns an air conditioning business and the family was aboard as guests of Florida-based air conditioning wholesalers Tropic Supply.
It had invited dozens of their contractors along for the trip to mark the company’s 50th anniversary.
The boat has docked in the Dominican Republic the previous day and was 57 miles off the coast of the Bahamas Grand Inagua when the alarm was raised.
Passenger Deborah Morrison said the crew were ‘alerted immediately’ by the ‘yelling’ which erupted, and the man’s family appeared ‘beside themselves’.
The 1,100 foot ship was slammed into brought to a halt and crew members immediately began looking for the missing passenger.
But most of the 4,000 passengers on board only became aware of the tragedy when the captain broke the news the following morning.
‘They announced it over the PA system while we were at breakfast at the entire room went silent,’ wrote one passenger on Reddit. ‘Then the rest of the cruise felt oddly casual.’
Some passengers scanned the of the young man before the ship resumed its journey just before 9am when the US Coast Guard cutter Seneca arrived at the spot.
‘The early morning was definitely somber as so many people came out of their cabins to stare at the sea, hoping to be able to aid in finding the person,’ said passenger Amy Phelps Fouse.
‘It was a sad morning looking out just to see if we come find a clue,’ wrote another.
‘I was on the ship and when the coast guard arrived and we got underway I couldn’t help think how they must be feeling they were leaving their son behind,’ added Linda Meissner Nuffe.
The young man is thought to have been staying with his family on deck 10, a flight below the whirlpools and hot tubs of deck 11.
Nuffe, who was staying in the cabin next door, woke to find a lock on the door of the family’s cabin and a crew member standing guard outside.
‘I saw a person go in that cabin on day one,’ she said.
‘I thought it was a teen or he could have been 20. My daughter and I were telling him how I sometimes put my deco on other doors the last night to confuse people. He laughed.
‘He was quiet and polite, not someone who seemed like a raging alcoholic like the press seems to be saying.
‘We never heard a noise out of that cabin, no partying, no arguing, no slamming doors. I looked over our balcony at theirs after I saw the lock, there was nothing but chairs there.’
More than 400 passengers are known to have fallen overboard from cruise liners in the past 30 years according to watchdog cruisejunkie.com.
A study by Cruise Lines International Association found that only 28 percent of those who fell overboard between 2009 and 2019 came out alive.
Travel lawyer and blogger Jim Walker said that Royal Caribbean along with the vast majority of US cruise companies have yet to install automatic man overboard systems as required by the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010.
‘Such automatic MOB systems utilize state-of-the-art motion detection, video and infrared technology and radar to instantly detect when someone goes over the rails of a cruise ship,’ he said.
Levion with a catch from a night time fishing expedition
Passenger Bryan Sims was among the last people to speak to Levion and was less than 10 feet away when the young man jumped to his death in front of his horrified father
The 154,000 ton Royal Caribbean ship was sailing with more than 4,000 passengers on a four-day cruise from Fort Lauderdale to the Dominican Republic and back
‘The system can then track the person’s movements in the water even at nighttime.
‘Without such a system, the chances of locating an overboard person in the water at night it like finding a needle in a haystack.’
The search by the US Coast Guard has since been suspended, a spokesperson for the US Coast Guard 7th District Public Affairs Team confirmed.
Francel told Dailymail.com that the family is consulting lawyers and is planning to issue a statement.
A Royal Caribbean spokesperson said: ‘The ship’s crew immediately launched a search and rescue effort alongside the US Coast Guard.
‘Our Care Team is providing support and assistance to the guest’s family during this difficult time.
‘For the privacy of the guest and their family, we have no additional details to share.’
Dailymail.com has reached out to the company for further clarification.