Ill-fated Carnival Triumph passengers seeking up to $1M in damages

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passengers should receive anywhere from $30,000 to $1 million, depending on the severity of their injuries.

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Townsend, a 54-year-old mother of two and grandmother of three, was one of 31 passengers who are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Carnival, alleging the company's responsibility for the ill-fated voyage.

She had just finished testifying in graphic detail what it was like on the ship as it sat disabled for days in the Gulf. Terrified passengers huddled on decks worried about their safety, she said, with foul toilets overflowing into hallways, no power, near-total darkness, long lines for rationed water and almost no food.

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Alton had to go several days without his diabetes medicine and was forced to climb numerous flights of often slippery stairs with his bad leg, causing him to fall once.

"It was a horrible experience," testified Michelle Key, 48, who went on the cruise with her mother, Fleda Key, 68. "I walked through water and feces and urine, no telling what else," she testified. "We would slip and slide through greasy, gross, slippery muck," she said, adding "it was very difficult" for her mother.

Fleda Key described having terrible diarrhea on numerous occasions and having difficulty finding any toilets that were not overflowing.

Fear of dying before reaching shore

"There was lots of urine and feces all the way up to the rim of every one," she said, explaining she "choked away the smell." Like many of the witnesses, she testified that she lived for days in total fear that they might not finish the voyage alive. "I was fearful, downright afraid and scared," said Fleda Key.

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