Nurse Reveals What Really Happened on 2013 Carnival Triumph Disaster

Exclusive to The Nurse Break and Nurses Collective, this article is written by Sarah Doran, a Tasmanian-based Registered Nurse who brings years of experience from Australia’s emergency departments and international public health work. In 2013, she found herself as a crew member aboard the Carnival Triumph during what would become one of the most infamous maritime disasters in cruise history — now the focus of Netflix’s soon-to-be-released documentary, Trainwreck: Poop Cruise. For the first time, Sarah shares her behind-the-scenes account of the five-day ordeal that stranded over 4,000 people at sea.

“So, when the Netflix documentary lands next week, remember: the headlines told one story. But those of us down on deck zero?
We lived the rest of it”.

Sarah Doran, RN – Tasmania, Australia

Code Brown in the Gulf: Life as a Nurse on the Carnival Triumph ‘Poop Cruise’ and Beyond

So this is the story I meant to write years ago — but like most nurses, I got busy. Life, shifts, and scrubs took over. But with Netflix dropping a documentary next week about Carnival Triumph, aka the Poop Cruise, it feels like the right time to finally tell my side of the story — as someone who helped nurse that ship back to life.

Let’s set the scene: February 2013. Carnival Triumph had just spent five days floating helplessly in the Gulf of Mexico after an engine room fire left her powerless. Toilets overflowed. Red biohazard bags replaced plumbing. It was front-page news around the world.

I wasn’t on board during the disaster — but I met the ship in Mobile, Alabama as it limped into port.

It was hot. Humid. The electricity barely worked. The air reeked of industrial cleaning agents and lingering sewage. The decks were wrapped in cling film and cardboard. No guests remained — just hundreds of crew and contractors flown in from around the world to bring the ship back from the brink. I was one of four nurses, with one doctor, caring for a crew made up of over 80 nationalities.

Our home base was deck zero, and the medical centre was just ten steps from my cabin — a blessing and a trap. I had my own room (a luxury), a cabin steward (bless him). Most of the crew bunked down on deck alpha, sharing bathrooms with three or more others. It was a different world below deck.

We treated everything from heatstroke in the engine room to crushed limbs during urgent ship repairs. One moment that still gives me chills: a young crew member with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. No blood bank. No time. The crew lined up to donate. We matched blood using Eldon cards, screened it with HIV and hepatitis blood spot tests, filled citrate bags, and transfused it manually. She lived. Two weeks later, she was back on duty like nothing had happened.

Later, in dry dock in the Bahamas, the ship sat completely out of the water — scaffolding, welding sparks, and the smell of metal. The medical centre became more than a clinic. It was a safe haven. Crew came for blood pressure checks, BGLs, STI treatment, or just a place to talk — about toxic bosses or tangled onboard relationships.

Outbreaks were part of the job: hepatitis A, norovirus, rubella, flu. I somehow survived a brutal gastro outbreak where I was the only medical staff member left standing. The rest of the team was down for the count, and I sprinted between cabins in full PPE. No medal. Just hand sanitiser and grit.

I was on call every fourth night for up to 6,000 people, and first responder on board. I did a lot of CPR during my time on board. One of the hardest memories was a passenger who suffered a STEMI. We thrombolysed him on board, did everything right. But the ocean was too rough to dock in Mexico. We couldn’t get him to a cath lab. He died at sea. I still think about him.

We had the gear: I-stat machines, full blood count analysers, portable x-rays. But the isolation meant we had to rely on resourcefulness. I had to relearn medications and lab values, because everything was in American drug names and measurements — mg/dL instead of mmol/L, Fahrenheit instead of Celsius, glucose readings that meant something entirely different to what I was used to. It was a crash course in clinical translation.

And then there was the rest of ship life:

• STIs and their chaotic webs (“Whose cabin were you in on crew party night?”)
• Guests trying to smuggle back benzos and opioids from Mexico
• Helicopter evacuations when we were near the U.S.
• The ship’s jail for onboard offences
• Welfare checks on solo passengers who bought suspiciously large amounts of alcohol

Drills were regular. Safety officers would plant dummies around the ship. The med centre usually got the heads-up — but we played along. This was a floating city, and sometimes we were all that stood between a crisis and chaos.

I ran chronic disease clinics for the crew — TB screening, diabetes checks, medication reviews. If someone needed an optometrist, podiatrist or dentist, we lined up onshore care at the next port. We also delivered health training — from blood-borne viruses to managing hypertension — all while floating under whatever laws applied to the flag we flew (Bahamas, Panama, pick your adventure).

I never had to handle a murder, suicide, or overboard — but colleagues of mine did. If someone died, the ship’s photographer (yes, the same one snapping pics at dinner) would be called to document the scene. We’d activate the morgue. It could hold six bodies. Deaths in international waters meant instant coronial cases, with investigators often waiting at port when we returned.

From 2013 to 2016, I sailed out of Miami, New York, Galveston, and California. I floated through wild seas, managed crises, and watched a ship recover from the depths of international scandal to a shiny, passenger-ready cruise liner.

Ship life broke me, healed me, and shaped me.
It taught me how to nurse without a safety net, how to lead without a team, and how to stay calm when the world tilts sideways — literally and metaphorically.

So, when the Netflix documentary lands next week, remember: the headlines told one story. But those of us down on deck zero?
We lived the rest of it.