Women injured on Queen Mary cruise

Two women were evacuated from the Queen Mary 2 cruise liner yesterday after separate falls in which they broke bones.

Ruth Perl, 65, from Cobham in Surrey, suffered a broken hip when she fell on the dance floor during a New Year party on the ship.

Toos Seheepers, 69, from the Netherlands, broke a leg when as she was boarding the ship on Wednesday evening.

The two women were taken to Torbay Hospital in Torquay, south Devon, and were described last night as being in a "comfortable" condition.

Mrs Perl's husband, David, said: "She was having a good time on the dance floor just before midnight, and she slipped and fell. It was nothing more than that." The accidents happened when the vessel was hours into the first of three trial voyages, before it begins to take paying passengers.

About 1,500 people, mainly friends and family of Cunard company staff, were aboard. Mrs Perl is the mother of Cunard's marketing director; and Mrs Seheepers is the mother of the cruise liner's maitre'd, Arjan Seheepers.

A gangway collapsed, killing 15 people, when the Queen Mary 2, the world's biggest passenger ship, was in Saint-Nazaire shipyard in November last year.