GEISMAR – An Ascension Parish couple's honeymoon turned into a medical nightmare and was highlighted by a television report in New Orleans questioning the healthcare aboard cruise ships.

“It’s just unfortunate,” Brant Aymond said of he and his new wife's Thanksgiving trip after their marriage last year. Aymond was injured when he hit a coral reef while paddle boarding in Honduras.

Aymond and his wife were vacationing on the Norwegian Pearl, a 2,400 passenger cruise ship.

The Aymonds spoke with WWL TV, a news partner with WBRZ, and a television station in New Orleans.

“...We had to make a decision,” Brant said. “Do you want to go to a Honduran clinic, or do you want to get back to the boat? So, based on the fact that we had purchased (extra medical) insurance, I was very confident that getting back to the boat was absolutely the best bet.”

WWL TV described a relay of good Samaritans who hired rowboats to get the couple back to the ship – a two and a half hour trip.

It was on the ship, though, that the nightmare started – but it didn't set in until they got back home to Ascension Parish.

Aymond said the ship doctor stitched his wounds and gave him incorrect antibiotics. It wasn't until they returned home and visited the emergency room at a hospital in Baton Rouge that they learned there was a serious issue.

Two weeks later, doctors in Baton Rouge had to perform emergency surgery and hoped their work would avoid the need for an amputation. There was a rash up Aymond's leg and his foot had swelled. Doctors found two pieces of coral sewn inside his foot and a severed tendon.

“We see patients come into the emergency department who have been treated, or – I won’t use the word ‘mistreated’ – but not treated optimally when they’ve been on cruise ships,” Dr. Jay Kaplan said, a medical director for ACMC Health and past president of ACEP, the national emergency physicians’ group that sets the cruise ship guidelines.

The Aymonds are frustrated with the care they received on the ship and question the healthcare cruise ships provide.

Norwegian released this statement to WWL TV:

“Norwegian is fully committed to providing medical services through licensed physicians and nurses and all of our ships feature medical facilities that are built, staffed and equipped to meet or exceed the guidelines established by the American College of Emergency Physicians.”

Click HERE to see and read the entire WWL TV report.

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