Further details have emerged following the death of a Chicago man on a Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas Atlantis cruise targeted towards gay men. Following a Reddit post by the man's sister which has since been deleted seeking answers about her brother's death, the story has captured the attention of the LGBTQ+ community.
The Washington Blade reported Atlantis CEO Rich Campbell confirmed the man was Jonathan Mindrum, 36, and said there weren't any suspicious circumstances surrounding his death. The outlet said reports indicate he died around 3 a.m. onboard the ship Jan. 24, yet the details of the cause are still unknown.
His sister, Jennifer, took to Reddit Jan. 26 claiming she and her family had "received hardly any information from the cruise line" regarding the incident and asked for anyone who was there or had information to contact her. She received a public reply from someone who said they believed they saw him when he died he said the music briefly stopped and a "Code Alpha" was called, indicating a life-threatening medical emergency, and Mindrum was seen unresponsive in a chair overlooking the dance floor. The replier said Mindrum was then taken away by a care team to the medical center, and there was no more information he could verify.
Multiple other Redditors replied to Jennifer's comments saying they were on the cruise, including one who said he had noticed "a ton of code alpha's" on this particular trip and "there were about four code alpha's within an hour" the night Mindrum died. A user who claimed to be on this cruise said the "medical emergencies were rampant after nightfall."
Jonathan's father, Craig Mindrum, also gave a statement to the Blade, saying his son was in the process of getting his master's in data science from Northwestern University. He said he and his family also have "important questions about the circumstances of his death and emergency services provided to him."
The Washington Blade coverage is at tinyurl.com/56ua6u3n .