- Salvatore Anello is accused of dropping his granddaughter Chloe Wiegand to her death from an open cruise ship window in San Juan, Puerto Rico on July 7
- Dr. Marcel Alexander Armand Van Drunick, the on board doctor for the ship, gave a witness statement describing the horrifying moment he found her body
- He said: ‘Her one pink shoe and the white hat was lying on the pier not far from the deceased. I immediately shouted for a sheet to cover the body’
- Dr. Van Drunick went up to the ship’s 11th deck where he found a crying Anello
- He said: ‘The grandfather collapsed on his hands and knees… he was distraught sobbing… while he was crying he just said: ”I thought the window was closed”
- In a new court filing, Chloe’s parents accuse Royal Caribbean of defaming Anello by blaming him for Chloe’s death and making ‘false statements’ about the day
- They use the doctor’s statement to back up their claims and said reenactment photos that show it was ‘impossible’ for Anello to lean out of the window
- In a separate criminal trial in Puerto Rico, Anello of Valparaiso, Indiana, faces up to three years in prison if he’s found guilty of causing Chloe’s fall
An on board doctor has described the horrifying moment he found Chloe Wiegand face down on a concrete pier after she slipped from her grandfather’s grasp and fell 150ft from a cruise ship window.
In a witness statement obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, Dr. Marcel Alexander Armand Van Drunick also recalls how he quizzed grandfather Salvatore Anello minutes after the fatal plunge of the Indiana toddler on July 7 last year.
The elderly, color-blind grandfather was hysterical and unable to walk unaided – but he immediately gave Dr. Van Drunick the same explanation he has given investigators ever since: ‘I thought the window was closed.’
Dr. Van Drunick was on board the Freedom the Seas when he was radioed at 4:04pm to reports of an ‘accident on the gangway’.
The 57-year-old medic raced along the Pan-American pier in San Juan, Puerto Rico where the $800 million cruise ship was docked and soon spotted 18-month-old Chloe.
‘About halfway down the pier we saw the body of a baby lying on the pier. It was a female, 18 month baby lying face down with multiple traumatic injuries. There was no life,’ Dr. Van Drunick told Puerto Rican investigators.
‘Her one pink shoe and the white hat was lying on the pier not far from the deceased. I immediately shouted for a sheet to cover the body.’