A Canadian man has been banned from going on Royal Caribbean cruise liners for life after he was recorded jumping off one of their vessels while it was docked in the Bahamas.
Nick Naydev, 27, of Vancouver, Washington, posted the clip of him jumping off the Symphony of the Seas onto his personal Instagram page while on holiday with his friends earlier his month.
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The video, which has since been viewed more than 80,000 times, shows Naydev jumping off the ship's barriers into the ocean below while male onlookers erupt into laughter. The ship was docked in the Bahamas capital of Nassau at the time.
After plummeting into the ocean, Naydev was picked up by a smaller boar belonging to the cruise liner and taken back on board.
"I am truly astonished at how this video has spread throughout the internet," Naydev said in a statement to FOX 13. "I did not think this through before I jumped. My idea was this would be a good laugh for my friends and I would just swim back to shore and continue my vacation and never thought this would be this serious.
"I just hope I don't inspire anyone to try this, because I don't want to feel responsible for any injuries."
In a statement, Royal Caribbean Cruise confirmed that Naydev and the friends he was with have all been banned from vacationing on their liners for life.
"This was stupid and reckless behavior, and he and his companions have been banned from ever sailing with us again. We are exploring legal action," Owen Torres, a spokesman for the cruise line, told The Columbian.
Naydev's friend Konstantin Kryachun, who was the one filmed the video on his cellphone, told Yahoo Lifestyle that they wanted to record Naydev jumping off the ship in order to "make it go viral."
"He's jumped from those kind of heights before, and we didn't really care about the consequences with the cruise company," he added.
In a separate video posted as an Instagram story, Kryachun said the rest of the party were also made to leave the ship following the incident, leaving them stranded in Nassau.
"Local police in Nassau, Bahamas, were called in to pick us up from the ship, but fortunately the police thought the whole situation was amusing and did not proceed to file any legal actions," Naydev added in his statement.
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