Passengers heard the blood-curdling scream of a panicked mother – then saw a man hurl himself 49 feet off the Disney Dream cruise ship into the ocean.
Seconds earlier, his five-year-old daughter had fallen overboard in what could have been a tragic accident.
The father’s daring leap made headlines around the world, hailed as an act of pure heroism.
But the Daily Mail can reveal he only made the desperate dive after his wife – the child’s mother – encouraged their daughter to climb in the porthole.
A damning police report states that the mother had told her little girl to pose for a photo in front of a porthole on June 29. The girl then lost her balance and fell through the opening into the ocean below at 11.29am. Her father dove in 45 seconds later.
Criminal charges were recommended, but Florida‘s state attorney declined to prosecute, saying it did not rise to ‘criminal culpable negligence.’
Hundreds of passengers watched as the pair were dramatically rescued by the ship’s crew after the dad kept his daughter afloat for 20 minutes before being rescued.
But the father quickly went from hero to villain in the public eye. He was pilloried online by thousands of strangers amid rumors he lifted his daughter on top of the railing for a photo.
A rescue crew went to recover a father and daughter from the ocean after the daughter fell off a Disney cruise ship and her father jumped in to save her
Pictured: The father of the little girl who fell overboard a Disney cruise ship recuperates on a rescue boat
A five-year-old girl fell out a porthole just like this on a Disney Dream cruise ship
Some even called for him to be thrown in jail, charged with child endangerment, have his daughter taken away from him, and for his wife to divorce him.
The speculation became so frenzied that police put out an emergency statement on July 2 to debunk the wild theories.
Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony said the girl was sitting on the railing and fell backward through a porthole, but that her father didn’t put her there.
At the time, he explained that detectives were still gathering details, but that his office released what they knew so far ‘in response to misinformation.’
With the father exonerated, the public chalked up the accident to a mischievous five-year-old and an easy-to-climb railing.
However, the full police report – filed the day before Tony’s statement and obtained by the Daily Mail – revealed more details about what happened in the moments before the girl fell.
Both parents were questioned by two Broward County Sheriff’s deputies and gave identical accounts consistent with security camera footage.
The mother said the family was walking along deck four when she pointed to the opening and ‘offered for her daughter to take a picture in the porthole.’
The little girl then climbed in front of the porthole window and sat on top of the railing to pose.
Pictured: The ship’s crew taking the father and daughter back to the Dream after plucking them from the ocean. The girl is sitting on the knee of the ship’s doctor being examined
It took nine minutes for the boat to reach the father and daughter once it had been deployed
‘[The mother] assumed the porthole had a window or plexiglass, and she thought that [her daughter] would be caught by the glass, but instead, she kept falling,’ the report read.
Despite watching her daughter fall through the opening and out of view, she spent a few seconds in disbelief before shouting to her husband.
The father, who was walking about 10 feet ahead of his family and didn’t see the girl fall, turned around and ‘observed his daughter in the water.’
‘He initially ran to get help but, after approximately 45 seconds, decided to jump into the ocean to attempt a rescue,’ officers wrote.
Meanwhile, the mother ‘screamed for help and tried to maintain visual contact with both the child and her husband as the ship turned,’ the report states.
The ship was making its way back to Florida from The Bahamas and was traveling at about 10knots (11.5mph).
Once in the water, the father realized he couldn’t see his daughter. But he was able to shout out to her and follow the sound of her yelling.
‘He was eventually able to reach her and tread water with her until they were rescued,’ the report stated.
As his daughter couldn’t swim, the father had to hold her above the water while they waited for rescue personnel.
Flotation rings were thrown into the water, but they were either too far away, or the father couldn’t grab them without risking letting go of his daughter.
The ship’s automatic man overboard alarm and the emergency code ‘Mr MOB’ blared over the intercom within two minutes of the girl falling.
Police said she was too small to be flagged by the system, which was instead triggered by her father diving in.
A mayday call was issued at 11.37am, and by 11.40am the crew had readied a yellow motorized rescue boat. The pair were plucked from the water nine minutes later.
The report stated that the father ‘expressed surprise and relief at their survival.’
The girl was kept under observation in the Dream’s medical bay before returning to shore. They were then both taken to Broward Health Medical Center, where doctors found the girl had no injuries. Her father was treated for an injury that had been redacted from the report.
The mother later told officers she had taken several other photos of her daughter on the ship’s railings throughout the trip.
Investigators were provided with ‘numerous pictures’ that were on the mother’s phone and had been taken in other portholes and windows around the ship.
‘She provided me with a picture of [the girl] laying in a porthole with a window on it,’ one of the deputies wrote in his report.
But the mother snapped so many frames this final time that, ‘when streamed together, [the photos] depict a seconds-long video of the child getting up on the railing, and falling backwards into the water.’
Refusing to take responsibility for the incident, the mother ‘stated that she felt like there should be coverings on the windows,’ and claimed ‘Disney is responsible for what occurred.’
The father’s heroic actions saved his daughter’s life (Pictured: the rescue boat docking after the 20-minute ordeal)
Unlike viewpoints elsewhere on the ship, which are lined with smooth plexiglass from top to bottom, the portholes are open.
Under the porthole, the steel wall forms a kind of shelf, about the height of a man’s thigh, that the rest of the railing is built on top of.
The design makes it easy for even a child to climb onto the shelf, and then on top of the much shorter railing above it.
Detective Christopher Favitta with the sheriff’s office recommended in his report that the mother be charged with one count of child neglect without great bodily harm.
He wrote that she ‘ultimately facilitated’ the girl ending up on the railing after she assumed it was covered.
‘Upon looking at the window myself, as a prudent person, I immediately saw that the window was open to the air, and did not have a covering,’ he wrote.
‘This act facilitated by [the mother] placed the child in a life-threatening situation. As a result, the child fell from the ship and into the water, in an avoidable accident.’
However, the Broward County State Attorney’s Office declined to charge the mother, and the case was closed.
‘While the defendant’s conduct is arguably negligent and irresponsible, it does not rise to the egregious level of conduct necessary to establish criminal culpable negligence,’ Assistant State Attorney Melissa Kelly wrote in a September 16 email.
Favitta closed the report stating: ‘Due to the State Attorney’s declination of filing any charges, no arrest will be made in this case.’
