A former NBC war correspondent has been awarded €17,500 damages against Irish Ferries for what was described in court as “a hideous and harrowing experience” while travelling from Cherbourg to Dublin.
Susan Burt, 75, told the Circuit Civil Court she feared she was going to die when Irish Ferries vessel MV Epsilon had been tossed around, once lurching to an angle of 33 degrees, in Storm Imogen almost ten years ago.
The court heard that conditions had been so bad the Epsilon had been unable to risk docking anywhere or dropping anchor and had to sail back and forth for 18 hours in what coastal shelter it could find until the storm abated.
“The vessel lurched so violently that people were screaming,” Ms Burt had told Judge Christopher Callan who had reserved judgment until today.
“Things were flying through the air, dishes were smashing and furniture sliding up and down decks and cabin floors and when the ship would roll we had to crawl.”
Three children and four other adults, including Ms Burt’s partner Chris Sawyer, had earlier accepted settlements ranging from €14,500 in the case of the children to €23,000 in Mr Sawyer’s claim.
He had been physically injured during the storm.
Ms Burt told her barrister John Wilde Crosbie, who appeared with Evan O’Dwyer of O’Dwyer Solicitors, Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, that she had lived through a horrific nightmare. She said the ship would turn over so far after having been hit by huge waves that passengers felt it would capsize.
The Epsilon had docked a day late on 9 February 2016. Ms Burt and her partner had been travelling to visit friends in Co Mayo.
Judge Callan said that while Ms Burt had not, according to psychiatric reports, reached the threshold of having suffered from PTSD, she had nevertheless been exposed to sustained and continuous shock, an experience she should not have had to endure.
“I thought I was going to die. I felt ‘this is it’,” she had said. “We were being thrown about and our car was absolutely squashed as vehicles criss-crossed the car deck.”
When barrister Roisin Haughey, counsel for Irish Ferries, had raised an issue on the amount of legal costs Ms Burt should be awarded considering the lower award for damages in her €60,000 claim, Judge Callan said he felt she should receive full Circuit Court costs.
“In fairness to the plaintiff these unusual proceedings have been going on for quite a long time and the court was impressed with her evidence,” Judge Callan said. “She did not in any way exaggerate what had happened to her.”
