'Home sweet home': Ocean ordeal over for Lethbridge cruise ship employee

Lethbridge cruise ship employee home at last After 2 months of lockdown, Lethbridge's Evan Herbert makes it home. Terry Vogt reports.

Lethbridge, Alta. — Evan Herbert said he is tired, but happy to be back home.

The 28-year old Lethbridge man was among 123c rew members allowed to disembark from the Emerald Princess cruise ship over the weekend in Fort Lauderdale Florida. “As soon as the gangway started up I was like, this is real.”

The 53 Canadians and 70 Americans had been stuck at sea for 56 days. During that time, they had been confined to their cabins for 22 hours a day.

Herbert said finally being able to leave the ship was an emotional experience, “Everybody was super happy. There was a lot of actual tears that day, as soon as we got off the ship. People hadn't touched land in eight weeks. Hadn’t seen land for eight weeks.”

Herbert signed on as a retail supervisor for Holland America Cruise Lines in July of 2019. He was onboard a cruise ship when COVID-19 lockdowns went into effect. Passengers were removed from the cruise ship March 15th, but crew members remained on the vessel.

Last month, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated about 80,000 crew members remained on ships off the U-S coast.

Herbert and other crew members have been speaking out, to raise awareness about the mental strain that crew members have been under.

He said the weeks or isolation are starting to take a toll. Herbert said he is aware of suicides aboard four cruise ships. “Four people in the past 48 hours have lost all hope, and decided that they were never going to get home, so they just ended it all.”

Health officials around the world have set a number of conditions that must be met before crews can disembark from cruise ships. Each crew member must be taken straight home, via charter plane or private car.

Herbert said after leaving the ship, his group boarded a bus that took them directly to their plane, for a flight to Toronto.

He then flew to Calgary with some of the other crew members, before boarding a flight to Lethbridge.

“I was the only one on the plane.” According to Herbert the airline employee who gave him the safety briefing said “I know this is awkward but you just have to pay attention.”

Cruise ship employees

Herbert will now quarantine for two weeks at home, but said he will continue to advocate for friends and fellow crew members who weren’t allowed to get off the ship in Florida. “I just learned only 0.07 percent of Coronavirus cases came from cruise ships, and yet we are treated by the international community as a plague of sorts.”

Herbert said out of nine crew members in his retail team, he is the only one who has made it home. “Canadians and Americans are the minority on board. It’s an international community. It’s a big family on board. Of course I’m concerned for those people.”

Herbert said he has no complaint with the cruise lines, but maintains every country in the world needs to reconsider how cruise ship employees are treated.

He points to the Cargill meat packing plant in High River as an example, “Would you tell those workers you were subject to coronavirus so you can’t go home? We’re going to set up cots in the basement for you to sleep in for eight weeks?”

Herbert said cruise ship crew members never got the option to go home and isolate, and many are still being forced to isolate in the middle of the ocean, at their workplace.

“I’m already home, I’m already comfortable in my bed. Some of my friends are still stuck on the ship for another 30 or 40 days.”