Former war correspondent awarded €17,500 for 'harrowing experience' on Irish Ferries
Ray Managh
Former NBC war correspondent Susan Burt has been awarded €17,500 damages against Irish Ferries for what was described in court as “a hideous and harrowing experience” on the high seas.
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 10 years ago during a sailing from Cherbourg to Dublin.
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,” Burt had told Judge Christopher Callan, who had reserved judgment until Friday.
“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 February 9th, 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.”
