More details have emerged of the final moments of a young Florida sportsman who threw himself overboard from the 11th deck of a Royal Caribbean cruise during a drunken argument with his dad.
Police in Broward County identified the missing man as Levion Parker 20, of North Port in Florida today, after the US Coast Guard abandoned its search in the waters off the Bahamas.
The cruise ship Liberty of the Seas was just hours from returning to Fort Lauderdale after a four-day cruise when dad Francel Parker caught up with Levion and brother Seth, 18, emerging from a hot tub at around 3.30am in the morning.
'His dad was fussing at him for being drunk, I guess,' fellow passenger Bryan Sims said.
'When we got to them, he said to his dad, 'I'll fix this right now.' And he jumped out the window in front of us all.'
It is unclear how Levion would have been 'drunk' as the minimum age to consume alcohol on Royal Caribbean ships on voyages from North America or the Caribbean is 21.
Social media posts show a popular and athletic young man who loved hunting and fishing, and played football for North Port High School before he graduated in 2022.
Sims said Levion and his brother had been chatting happily in the hot tub on the 11th deck of the 154,000 ton liner just moments before the horrific incident on April 4.
'I had hung out with him and his brother in the hot tub until 3.30am,' Sims told the NY Po
st.
'It was standing room only. He sat right beside me the whole time.
'We chatted about different things, and he told me that he worked on yachts and other types of boats in Florida.
'I would say around 3.30 to 3.45am him and his brother left the hot tub. I just assumed they were headed to bed.
'Everyone had left the hot tub by 4am and went their separate ways.
'I got out, went to the restroom, dried off, put my shirt on and was walking from the front of the ship to the back elevators to go down to my room.
'When I got near the back of the ship on the pool deck I noticed him his brother and dad coming out of the sliding doors there near the elevators.
'They were walking in my direction and his dad had his arm around him and they were talking.