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Left to die: The haunting questions after Lizard Island cruise ship tragedy · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Friday, January ninth, twenty twenty six. It's a climb
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  Speaker 1: down of epic proportions. So why, through long weeks of
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  Speaker 1: political damage, did it take Anthony Albanezi so long to
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  Speaker 1: finally crumble to pressure from doctors, lawyers, community leaders, sporting
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  Speaker 1: figures and all sides of politics and decide to have
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  Speaker 1: a Royal commission into the Bondai massacre.
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  Speaker 2: After all, in the days after the fourteenth of December,
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  Speaker 2: we were very focused. I don't think you can argue
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  Speaker 2: that some people were focused on political issues. You know,
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  Speaker 2: the nation needs to come together when there has been
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  Speaker 2: a national crisis in the past, whether it be the
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  Speaker 2: Balley bombings which a whole lot of my constituents lost
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  Speaker 2: their lives, whether it be the attack that occurred on
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  Speaker 2: the Link Cafe in Sydney, whether it be Port Arthur.
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  Speaker 2: There was no partisanship, no partisanship whatsoever. The country came together.
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  Speaker 2: They offered their unity in moving forward. That is what
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  Speaker 2: I have tried to do. I'd ask others to conduct
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  Speaker 2: themselves in a similar manner.
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  Speaker 1: Right now at the Australian dot Com, you can read
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  Speaker 1: all the nation's best analysis and the details of what
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  Speaker 1: happens now. How could a cruise ship leave an elderly
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  Speaker 1: lady to die? Suzanne Reese, aged eighty, perished after allegedly
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  Speaker 1: being left on Lizard Island by the Coral Expedition's cruise
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  Speaker 1: company in twenty twenty five. The same vessel later found
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  Speaker 1: itself stuck on a reef of Australia's Northern Tip, and
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  Speaker 1: cruise passengers were left wondering why. Nothing had apparently been
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  Speaker 1: learned from the horror find deaths of two tourists that
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  Speaker 1: were supposed to make adventures like this safer forever Today
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  Speaker 1: the mystery of Suzanne Reese's death in Paradise.
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  Speaker 3: An elderly woman has been found dead on the Great
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  Speaker 3: Barrier reef's luxury Lizard Island after she was allegedly left
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  Speaker 3: behind by a cruise ship.
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  Speaker 2: The eighty year old cruise passenger who died after she
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  Speaker 2: was left behind on a Queensland island has been identified
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  Speaker 2: as Sydney woman Suzanne Reese.
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  Speaker 4: The vessel was little over a week into what was
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  Speaker 4: meant to be a two month circumnavigation of Australia.
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  Speaker 1: It was like something out of the White Lotus, a
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  Speaker 1: remote tropical paradise and a mysterious death. But the loss
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  Speaker 1: of Suzanne Reese has left a family and an entire
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  Speaker 1: industry reeling. The cruise ship's owner when I may hit
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  Speaker 1: trouble again in December, when the same vessel got stuck
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  Speaker 1: on a reef of Papua New Guinea.
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  Speaker 5: From Papua New Guinea, the cruise liner struck a coral
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  Speaker 5: reef on Saturday morning, leaving eighty passengers and forty three
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  Speaker 5: crew members stranded around ninety kilometers off shore.
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  Speaker 1: Sarah Elks is a senior journalist with The Australian. Sara,
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  Speaker 1: how did you first hear about the Lizard Island cruise death?
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  Speaker 4: So I heard from a source early one morning that
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  Speaker 4: a passenger of a cruise ship in far North Queensland
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  Speaker 4: and on the Great Barrier Reef was missing. Initially I
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  Speaker 4: thought it was another situation like the Lonigans, the American
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  Speaker 4: couple who had been left behind while they were scuba
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  Speaker 4: diving on the Great Barrier Reef in the nineteen nineties,
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  Speaker 4: which was a horrific case. We soon realized that it
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  Speaker 4: was not quite like that. What had happened was that
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  Speaker 4: a luxury cruise ship had actually left a passenger behind
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  Speaker 4: on remote Lizard Island, and they hadn't realized that they
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  Speaker 4: had left her behind after a day trip shockingly, and
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  Speaker 4: it was only after she didn't turn up for dinner
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  Speaker 4: on the ship that we understand. Fellow passengers raised the
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  Speaker 4: alarm and the ship initially thought she may have fallen overboard.
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  Speaker 4: They did a search, They searched the ship, they searched
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  Speaker 4: the waters immediately surrounding and then they put in a
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  Speaker 4: call to the Australian Maritime Safety Authorities twenty four to
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  Speaker 4: seven hotline for these kinds of marine incidents, and they
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  Speaker 4: turned the ship around and they headed back towards Lizard Island.
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  Speaker 4: They immediately started a search that night. The cruise ship
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  Speaker 4: is obviously pretty slow vessel. They sent some crew members
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  Speaker 4: ahead on a smaller boat so they could start ching
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  Speaker 4: by torch light for Suzanne Rees and they didn't find her. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 4: police ended up finding her on the Sunday morning. They
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  Speaker 4: found her body about fifty meters off the path that
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  Speaker 4: she had been walking on on a guided hike to
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  Speaker 4: the highest point of Lizard Island, which is a spot
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  Speaker 4: called Cook's Look, so called after Captain Cook walked up
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  Speaker 4: to the top of.
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  Speaker 3: This point to try and find his.
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  Speaker 4: Way out of the Great Barrier reef out of the
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  Speaker 4: Coral Shoal.
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  Speaker 1: So let's go back in time a couple of days.
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  Speaker 1: Sarah Friday, October twenty four was when this vessel left
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  Speaker 1: the port of Cans, setting out on what would have
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  Speaker 1: been a once in a lifetime journey. Suzanne Reese, we
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  Speaker 1: now know, was an eighty year old lady from Sydney,
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  Speaker 1: very adventurous person. She looks extremely fit, she looks wonderfully
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  Speaker 1: being healthy. There's a great photograph of her having what
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  Speaker 1: looks like a champagne breakfast, and she lived with her
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  Speaker 1: daughter in Sydney. She was obviously a well loved and
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  Speaker 1: extremely capable, although elderly lady. So the versa left Cans
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  Speaker 1: and their first stop was Lizard Island. What were they
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  Speaker 1: doing at Lizard Island?
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  Speaker 4: The Coral Adventurer had a number of options for their
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  Speaker 4: passengers when they docked at Lizard Island. If people wanted
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  Speaker 4: to get off the ship and explore, they could do
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  Speaker 4: some snorkeling in the water off Lizard Island.
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  Speaker 3: It's incredibly beautiful.
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  Speaker 4: They could also take a guided walk with crew members
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  Speaker 4: up to Cook's Look and then back down again. And
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  Speaker 4: we know from Lizard Island Resort what they tell their
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  Speaker 4: hotel guests a very exclusive, luxurious resort. They say, go
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  Speaker 4: very early in the morning, take a lot of water,
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  Speaker 4: and take communications devices, because even though it is only
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  Speaker 4: a four kilometer round trip, it can take a number
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  Speaker 4: of hours. And there is no cover, there's no tree cover,
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  Speaker 4: it's very exposed, and it wasn't quite summer yet. It
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  Speaker 4: was late October when this happened, but it was extremely hot.
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  Speaker 4: And even though miss Reese was extremely fit, as you've said,
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  Speaker 4: she was a keen bushwalker. She was a member of
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  Speaker 4: a bushwalking club, and her family says she was very
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  Speaker 4: fit and healthy. What they understand, what they've been told,
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  Speaker 4: is that at some point on her walk, she said
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  Speaker 4: to the crew members that she wasn't feeling well. And
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  Speaker 4: what her family has been told extraordinarily is that she
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  Speaker 4: was instructed by those crew members to find her own
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  Speaker 4: way back to the ship. Now, what we have discovered is,
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  Speaker 4: once we've reported those details, a lot of the Australians'.
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  Speaker 3: Readers are keen.
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  Speaker 4: Cruisers and they have said how unusual it is for
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  Speaker 4: a passenger, let alone an elderly passenger, to be expected
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  Speaker 4: to navigate their way back somewhere, particularly when they're already
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  Speaker 4: not feeling well. So I think the family and others
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  Speaker 4: have a lot of questions about the appropriateness of that decision,
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  Speaker 4: And obviously, in hindsight we can tell it was the
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  Speaker 4: wrong decision and what should have happened was a head
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  Speaker 4: count of all passengers. So ships are supposed to have
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  Speaker 4: very strict for obvious reasons of protocols to count on
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  Speaker 4: and off people who leave the ship, and it's particularly
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  Speaker 4: strict when people are in the water. Because of the
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  Speaker 4: Lonegan experience, however, it seems as if either the protocols
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  Speaker 4: weren't followed, or they certainly weren't followed properly because they've
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  Speaker 4: not realized that Suzanne Reese was not on the ship
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  Speaker 4: until several hours after they left Lizard Island.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's just pause and put ourselves in our imagination
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  Speaker 1: on that walk with the two guides from the cruise
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  Speaker 1: ship who were taking a group of people up, I
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  Speaker 1: can imagine I have some empathy for them. They might
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  Speaker 1: be young people typically who work in cruising. They're leading
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  Speaker 1: a group up. Somebody in the group says, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: feeling well. I might head back down, you know. Don't
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  Speaker 1: worry about me. I'll be fine. Perhaps that's one way
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  Speaker 1: that it could have unfolded. I can sort of understand
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  Speaker 1: how they might have felt, well, we have the other
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  Speaker 1: people that we need to look after. There needs to
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  Speaker 1: be two of us to take them all the way
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  Speaker 1: up to the top. So you can understand that scenario unfolding.
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  Speaker 1: It does bring to mind for me, Sarah, the death
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  Speaker 1: of Michael Moseley, the greatly beloved British doctor who died
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  Speaker 1: on a Greek island again set out for a walk
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  Speaker 1: a fit older man in his late sixties, and died
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  Speaker 1: very very close to help after apparently becoming disoriented and
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  Speaker 1: losing his way. Nightmarish scenario for those young cruise workers,
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  Speaker 1: isn't it.
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  Speaker 4: Of course, And we don't want to presuppose or prejudge
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  Speaker 4: any of what individuals may have done. I think what
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  Speaker 4: a coronial investigation may discover is what systems were in
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  Speaker 4: place and what systems failed. We of course don't want
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  Speaker 4: to unfairly place blame on any particular individual before all
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  Speaker 4: the facts are known, but yes it does beggar belief
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  Speaker 4: and p's It is something worth noting that the passengers
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  Speaker 4: there was about one hundred and twelve of them on board.
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  Speaker 4: They were supposed to leave a week earlier, so there
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  Speaker 4: was some kind of electrical problem with the ship. They
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  Speaker 4: all had to wait on the ship for a week
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  Speaker 4: in cans so it wasn't the ideal.
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  Speaker 3: Start to the trip.
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  Speaker 4: But presumably they may have got to know people, and
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  Speaker 4: maybe that's why some of Miseres's fellow passengers noticed that
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  Speaker 4: she wasn't dinner on that night after the Lizard Island walk.
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  Speaker 4: But I know some of our readers have suggested, and
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  Speaker 4: again we don't know the details, but perhaps maybe one
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  Speaker 4: of the guests could have been tasked with waiting with
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  Speaker 4: miss Rees or helping her back to the ship just
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  Speaker 4: until the remaining people had finished their walk and they
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  Speaker 4: could have all gone together. But of course, as we
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  Speaker 4: said in hindsight, it's much easier for us from studios
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  Speaker 4: in prison and Sydney to make these assumptions about what
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  Speaker 4: should have happened. Unfortunately, these things didn't happen, and the
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  Speaker 4: worst has occurred.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up how Suzanne Reese's case awakened memories of a
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  Speaker 1: tragedy nearly thirty years old. In nineteen ninety eight, American
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  Speaker 1: couple Tom and Eileen Lonigan borded a dive boat in
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  Speaker 1: Port Douglas, bound for Saint Crispin's Reef, a popular scuba
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  Speaker 1: site south of Lizard Island. The experienced divers were visiting
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  Speaker 1: the reef on their way home to Louisiana from Fiji,
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  Speaker 1: where they'd been serving in the Peace Corps. But two
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  Speaker 1: days after the vessel returned to dock, a staff member
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  Speaker 1: found the Lonegan's wallets and passports, and it became clear
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  Speaker 1: they must have been left behind on the reef. Tom
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  Speaker 1: and Eileen Lonegan were never seen again. Here's Sarah Elks.
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  Speaker 4: So there was a whole heap of other regulations put
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  Speaker 4: in place, but one of the things we weren't really
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  Speaker 4: able to establish was whether there are different regulations for
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  Speaker 4: those kinds of dive boats and snorkeling boats compared to
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  Speaker 4: cruise ships. And unfortunately, and perhaps understandably, but I think unfortunately,
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  Speaker 4: the various authorities when we were first reporting this story
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  Speaker 4: weren't willing to talk about actually what the regulations are.
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  Speaker 4: And certainly the various tourism operators were not willing to
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  Speaker 4: talk about their processes, and that was something that Suzanne
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  Speaker 4: Reese's family, including her daughter Catherine, really raised concerns about,
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  Speaker 4: is why this company has not been willing to talk
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  Speaker 4: about what processes they do have in place to stop
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  Speaker 4: this from happening.
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  Speaker 1: The ship that Suzanne Reese was on was called Coral Adventurer.
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  Speaker 1: That's owned by a company which is ultimately owned by NRMA,
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  Speaker 1: the big tourism and motoring conglomerate. That's one of Australia's
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  Speaker 1: biggest and most significant companies. How did you rate their
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  Speaker 1: response to your query, Sarah and to the family of
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  Speaker 1: Suzanne Reese.
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  Speaker 4: Unfortunately, they weren't very forthcoming. I think they went into
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  Speaker 4: full crisis mode as you can understand, and certainly initially
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  Speaker 4: they weren't willing to say very much on the record
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  Speaker 4: at all, including to help us report as accurately and
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  Speaker 4: as fairly as possible. As time went on, they were
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  Speaker 4: a little bit more forthcoming, I think, certainly as Miss
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  Speaker 4: Reese's family quite courageously released some really detailed statements to us,
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  Speaker 4: to The Australian in particular running through exactly what happened.
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  Speaker 3: And also Catherine Rees.
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  Speaker 4: Has spoken about her disappointment about the contact that she
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  Speaker 4: received from the choral expedition's company and NRMA. She felt
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  Speaker 4: like then that there were a number of unanswered questions
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  Speaker 4: and she was also quite critical of the company, saying
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  Speaker 4: publicly that they had offered her and her family help
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  Speaker 4: and support, but she said at the time that it
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  Speaker 4: was not what help and support they were offering, and
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  Speaker 4: I think all they wanted at the time was some
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  Speaker 4: clear answers to exactly what happened. And we have reached
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  Speaker 4: back out to and hopefully by the time this comes
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  Speaker 4: out we might know more. But we've reached back out
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  Speaker 4: to the family of Suzanne Reese to see whether they
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  Speaker 4: have received some answers to those outstanding questions, and we
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  Speaker 4: will be talking to all of the different agencies that
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  Speaker 4: were investigating. So after the death, the police initially responded
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  Speaker 4: with searching. The police were the agency that managed to
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  Speaker 4: find miss Rees's body on the Sunday morning. There was
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  Speaker 4: a coronial investigation launched, an investigation by the Australian Maritime
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  Speaker 4: Safety Authority and a Workplace Health and Safety Queensland investigation.
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  Speaker 4: We've not heard anything yet about the outcomes of those investigations.
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  Speaker 4: But I think it'll be really important once we do
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  Speaker 4: know what their records are, that they are adopted so
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  Speaker 4: that this kind of tragedy doesn't happen again.
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  Speaker 1: It's a really interesting balance that Australia faces, isn't it, Sarah.
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  Speaker 1: We're so protected by great consumer laws and by great
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  Speaker 1: safety regulations a lot of the time. We're also aging well,
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  Speaker 1: we're often very healthy into our seventies and eighties, and
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  Speaker 1: we're adventurous, we like to travel. All those things come together,
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  Speaker 1: and I think maybe it's easy for operators to forget
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  Speaker 1: that maybe some of their customers are quite vulnerable, elderly,
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  Speaker 1: vulnerable people who are almost more like children, you know,
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  Speaker 1: who need the protection of operators rather than just being
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  Speaker 1: left to their own devices. How have you kind of
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  Speaker 1: reflected on all of that in the month since you
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  Speaker 1: did this reporting.
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  Speaker 3: That's such a.
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  Speaker 4: Difficult question because there might be a gap between what
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  Speaker 4: each of us believes we're capable of and what it
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  Speaker 4: actually turns out we're capable of. Ups what each of
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  Speaker 4: the passengers needed to be told was just how tricky
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  Speaker 4: this kind of hik is, and about the conditions, about
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  Speaker 4: how hot it is to make sure that the largely
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  Speaker 4: older cohort is properly supported with you know, maybe extra
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  Speaker 4: water and some food on the journey, and perhaps you
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  Speaker 4: need a couple of extra crew members, and you know,
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  Speaker 4: it does show that, as you say, our older Australians
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  Speaker 4: are really keen to experience our beautiful country. If these
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  Speaker 4: companies are going to sell them a very expensive ticket,
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  Speaker 4: then I think the very least that a passenger could
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  Speaker 4: expect is that their safety is protected as much as possible.
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  Speaker 1: Sarah Elks is a senior journalist with The Australian.
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  Speaker 3: Thanks Sarah, Thanks Claire.
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  Speaker 1: Before we go.
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  Speaker 3: An important note.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: A podcast episode on twenty six February titled Slater and
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Gordon's Fake Email Nightmare made reference to the fact that
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Marie Ruiz Matheson's name was used in an email to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: all staff at her former firm, Slater and Gordon. The
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Australian accepts Miss Ruiz Matheson did not author and did
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: not send the email, and apologizes to her if any
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: viewers took the podcast to be suggesting otherwise.