WASHINGTON (AP) — Laurie Dishman told senators through tears Wednesday that she was choked and raped on a Royal Caribbean cruise by one of the line's employees, using her experience to shed light on the dangers that passengers might face on cruises. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., the committee chairman, said Dishman's experience and other horror stories recounted at the hearing point to a lack of oversight and accountability for passenger safety in the cruise industry. "In spite of the evidence that crimes, fires, mechanical failures, drownings and mishandled medical emergencies occur with disturbing regularity on cruise ships, the industry continues to deny that it has a problem," Rockefeller said. Philip Gerson, a Miami-based civil trial lawyer who has litigated cruise liner cases, said significant improvements in passenger safety are needed. Another witness, Kim Ware of Houston, said she was a passenger on the Carnival Triumph in 2013 when it lost power in the Gulf of Mexico after an engine room fire that disabled basic systems including water and sewage.