Girl Dies After Cancun Senior Class Trip

Authorities Are Investigating How A Snorkeling Trip Ended In A Fatal Accident

(CBS/ AP)  A Texas high school girl died Tuesday after being flown home in a coma after nearly drowning when a snorkeling tour boat began sinking near Cancun, Mexico, this weekend.

The Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed the death of Lisa Thang Chung, 18. She had been flown to Dallas on an air ambulance along with her parents, said Luis Raymundo Canche, assistant prosecutor for the Mexican state of Quintana Roo.

Chung suffered heart and lung failure after nearly drowning Saturday when the catamaran she was aboard sank between Cancun and Isla de Mujeres.

"She was so very, very happy, and that's why I gave her a trip to Cancun," Lisa's mother Oanh Chung told CBS News affiliate KTVT. "When she came back, she was ready to go to Baylor, and then she said that's her future."

KTVT reports that Chung was in the water and wearing a life jacket when she was struck by a rescue boat.

Several other teens who were on the snorkeling expedition told CBS News Early Show anchor Julie Chen that they had had close calls with other boats after they abandoned ship.

Jackie Filippi told Chen that she and others had to jump off of the life raft they had taken refuge on after a larger vessel almost collided with them.

"It was a bigger boat coming in trying to tow the boat that was sinking," she said. "We were just floating and they came very close to us and we yelled at them, but they didn't move, so we jumped off our lifeboat and swam to just random boaters."

Saya Arakawa had a similar experience after jumping into the water and swimming to a lift raft to await help.

"But then the boat that was towing our boat that sank, it started getting closer to us," she said. "We were like trying to tell them to move, but they just kind of stared at us. I don't know if they understood us or not. So we had to evacuate from our life raft and just started swimming."

Authorities said they were investigating whether the "Sea Star" catamaran was overloaded.

A preliminary report by the port captain said the boat appeared to be carrying 126 people when it is authorized to carry 80. But Sea Star Captain Agustin Cituk said the boat has the capacity to carry 250 people.

GradCity spokesman Jason Chute said the snorkeling excursion was part of a package trip organized by the U.S. tourist agency. GradCity has sent 32 chaperones and nearly 500 high school students to Cancun this summer, Chute said.

Chute also said the vessel was designed to carry 250, and described it as a 73-foot catamaran built less than six months ago. "It was nowhere near capacity," he said.

"We're trying to find out what caused the boat to go under and the series of events following the boat partially sinking," he told The Associated Press on Monday. "We've worked with them before. As I understand, his boat was new, less than six months old, at least that's what we've been told."

[incog-nito]

U2PlayNice: Where did you come from? So I overreacted to someone calling me names, simply because I suggested people vacation at home in the U.S. I loved it when people go online proclaiming their "superiority" by correcting other people''s spelling mistakes, and calling others a fraud, unprovoked, without knowing a single thing about them.

garrett2216: I didn''t mean to say that people should go to exotic places. I meant to say that the few vacation spots I''ve been to, they are so westernized that you don''t really get to see the real country.

Anyway, my condolences to the family of this young girl.

[nottellin1]

Someone must be at fault .. there is no such thing as an accident when you have to assign fault in order to file a lawsuit.


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Posted by cyberus at 06:18 PM : Jun 12, 2008

The law suit will be against the American tour agency, GraCity because the legal system in Mex doesn''t support negligence awards like we do in the US. Rereading the story I note that GradCity boasts that they sent 32 chaperones with nearly 500 students. Thats like 1 chap for 15 students, not avery comforting ratio!

[mljohns00]

Who needs to go to Cancun for watersports, when there''s plenty of water in Cedar Rapids, Iowa?

[guest173]

kansas1946 says it well. I''ve been to Korea, Japan, Mexico and many places in the US. the US is a great place to sight see and the safety standards are much higher than many other countries. that is why I say texas schools shouldn''t be going go less secured countries. (Japan has high safety standards, but Korea and Mexico and Okinawa didn''t the last time I went, if you die, they don''t change much either, you''re just dead)

[guest173]

Texas schools should not offer trips to Mexico, but they do all the time. Mexico is not safe enough for students to go with their limited chaperone power and tourist mindset. it is too bad this young person died

[garrett2216]

incog-nito: we were supposed to be going to see the "exotic" places you keep talking about; we had a snorkel trip and a jungle tour that included the mayan ruins and whatnot. but after this boat sank everyone kinda lost interest in putting ourselves under their supervision for the jungle tour. in fact some people left early.

[Latrocinor]

My sincere condolences to Ms. Chung''s family, friends and others who sorrow at this sad news.

[puzzler125]

Just lovely. Reread your comments about "Mexicans" and the names you call each other here. Have you forgotten the subject of the article is a serious accident?

[cbsblogger]

This blog has more info that CBS.


http://www.cancuncanuck.com/

[incog-nito]

andrew_693: Hey stupid, I travel all the time for work, both in the U.S. and abroad, and I meet real people. I don''t go the vacation spots, designed and sanitized for Westerners, that looks nothing like the country they''re in. Think before you start name-calling, loudmouth.

[tcart2]

Andrew_693 at least if you are going to take the time to make a comment, use your brain to do it with! Comments such as that are so intelligent!

[kaffirboetie]

I''m reluctant to take issue with sgbwarrior who clearly liked the young woman who was run down by a careless boat driver, but the sad reality is that it wasn''t God who said her time was up, but some idiot mexican who didn''t have the sense the motor carefully in an area where over 100 people had gone into the water. I sincerely hope that the Mexican authorities throw the book at that individual

[incog-nito]

Why do people feel the need to go to some "second world" countries to have fun? Those vacation spots are so americanized there is nothing "exotic" about them. There are plenty of great places to enjoy right here in the U.S.

[garrett2216]

ok mr "jchaosv2", this wasn''t a "bunch of teens going to get drunk" it was a bunch of teens who were going to snorkel, most of which had never been, to enjoy their experience in Cancun, again which most had never been. and yes, i say this with reason: I was on this boat when all this happened, it was a scary situation. I''m sorry that you don''t consider 200+ teens in a life threatening situation news worthy information. but buddy i can absolutely guarantee you that if you had a loved one on that ship you would like the incident to get recognition as well. my condolences go out to lisa''s family and friends. i know she meant a lot to her friends because i saw their reactions when she was en route to the hospital. the entire situation was messed up and had it been handled better by the "officials" this young girl could very possibly still be with us today. I want you to be under the care of someone else in an environment that is supposed to be a unique experience, and i want that experience to go horribly wrong and i want the people you are relying on to bail on you. then i want to see how much your opinion of a "news acceptable story" changes.

[gmond]

The rescuers were more concerned with rescuing a boat than people. Yet we must nurture, support and embrace them and their culture when they come to our country. Interesting.

[caliengineer]

A tragedy. I pray her parents will be able to grieve and move on, without self-blame for gifting her the trip.

[kansas1946]

This has been years ago, but some friends of mine went to Cancun and were our on a sight-seeing boat and the seas got choppy and their boat started to sink. She said that there were a lot of old people on the boat and kids. The captain and crew of the ship abandoned them and started swimming for shore. She said she thought they were going to all die, but luckily another boat in the area came to their rescue and got everyone off. I think Americans need to remember, even though some of these resort areas look modern and American, they aren''t. The reason everything is cheaper in some of these countries is that they have lower standards for everything. Safety, health, water, manufacturing, food, amusement rides, boats, planes, everything. You can''t expect things to be as safe there as they are here. It is really a case of buyer beware.

[sgpwarrior]

You people who are hating and making fun of this accident is just wrong. Someone wrote "They didnt hobble le Engleesh" are you kidding me?? what kind of bs is that to write?? What, just because she''s asian you expect her to not know english?? I acutally went to school with her and she lived her high school years the best that she could and she was very sweet, bright and popular. I know she enjoyed her social and personal life to the fullest and God just said her time was up. May she rest in peace.

[meinnv]

What gets me is that we are frowned upon here in the US (where ENGLISH is the official language) because we don''''t speak Spanish and they expect all our legal documents (ie dmv / voter ballots..etc) to be printed in Spanish YET you go to Mexico and they act like what, we are suppose to speak english WHAT we want us to print everything in English ??? silly Americans...

Posted by minimoossee

My thoughts exactly. When we travel to Mexico or overseas we have to learn their language to survive or at best not get ourselves in over our heads, or order something that could kill us. Yet, we print everything from documents to prescription labels in their languages to accomodate them.

My condolences to the family of this girl. I hope that they can find the truth behind this tragedy.

[jchaosv2]

So, a bunch of kids went to get drunk and one drowned? Mexico%u2019s coast guard is incompetent? where is the news here? looks more like a personal tragedy to me. I guess this is more palatable news then the recent attempt to impeach bush, the gathering food shortage, peak oil, or anything else approaching real news. The MSM doesn%u2019t have a liberal tilt, it just wallows in mediocrity. which i guess is fitting since we%u2019re pretty much a service industry nation, no point educating the burger cook or house cleaner is there?