The last lifeboat is lowered.
Monday, April 15, 1912 - 2:10 a.m.
Hugh Woolner, First Class Passenger:
"... the electric lights along the ceiling of A Deck were beginning
to turn red, just a glow, a red sort of glow. So I said to Steffanson:
'This is getting rather a tight corner. I do not like being inside
these closed windows. Let us go out through the door at the end.' And as we
went out through the door the sea came in onto the deck at our feet.
Then we hopped up onto the gunwale preparing to jump out into the sea,
because if we had waited a minute longer we should have been boxed in
against the ceiling. And as we looked out we saw this collapsible, the last
boat on the port side, being lowered right in front of our faces. It was full
up to the bow, and I said to Steffanson: 'There is nobody in the bows. Let us
make a jump for it. You go first.' And he jumped out and tumbled in head
over heels into the bow, and I jumped too, and hit the gunwale with my
chest, which had on this life preserver, of course, and I sort of bounced
off the gunwale and caught the gunwale with my fingers, and slipped off backwards.
As my legs dropped down I felt that they were in the sea. Then I hooked
my right heel over the gunwale, and by this time Steffanson was standing
up, and he caught hold of me and lifted me in. Then we looked over into the
sea and saw a man swimming in the sea just beneath us, and pulled him in.
By that time we were bumping against the side of the ship. She was going
down pretty fast by the bow. We were exactly opposite the end of the glass
windows on the A Deck."
© Paul Quinn 1996 - All contents of these pages.