A woman says her medical emergency while aboard a Celebrity Cruise ship became an absolute nightmare for her after the ship’s medics gave her a blood transfusion from a donor who had HIV.
The woman was aboard a 7-day cruise when on the 5th day she began to have severe rectal bleeding and had to go to the medical center. According to a federal lawsuit, doctors diagnosed her with a gastrointestinal hemorrhage and said she would need an emergency blood transfusion to survive.
According to the suit, the medical staff turned to passengers for assistance, announcing over the ship’s PA system that they needed Type A-negative blood. There were 4 passengers who stepped up to donate blood, and she got the transfusion.
Sometime later, the woman says she was diagnosed with HIV … and she believes she contracted it from the transfusion. In her suit, she calls out Celebrity Cruises doctors for not properly screening the donated blood before giving it to her.
The woman is suing the cruise line for unspecified damages.
Ironically, the cruise doctors told her that she would have died without the transfusion. On the one hand, the doctors as well as her fellow passengers who donated blood saved her life. However, now she has to live with HIV, which thankfully has great treatment options these days.
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