Rescue at Sea

Rescue at Sea

Once dreamed of as the titan of the sea, Titanic, sank beneath the smooth surface of the Atlantic Ocean the trouble was far from over. The situation and soundscape passengers and crew members found themselves in was the most troubling of all. As John Thayer, a teenager who survived the ordeal, said, shouts from those thrown into the icy water swelled into "one long continuous wailing chant." "It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night in the woods. This terrible cry lasted for twenty or thirty minutes, gradually dying away, as one after another could no longer withstand the cold and exposure." 

Most of the deaths associated with Titanic’s sinking can be attributed to the following causes:

1.    Drowning: The most commonly ascribed cause of death related to Titanic’s sinking did not, in fact, kill very many people. Drowning, within its simplest definition, death following the immersion of the mouth and nostrils in liquid and the inhalation of liquid, means very few of those in the water drowned. However, anyone who survived the plunge into the water without a life belt on likely did drown. Those people who remained inside the ship stood a greater chance of drowning.

a.    One of the reasons it is known that few of those in the water died of drowning was the mass cry heard by survivors. Many of those who died in the water were able to call for help or otherwise make loud vocal noises. 

2.    Hypothermia: This was the cause of death of most for the people who landed in the ocean alive. When a human’s body temperature goes below 95° F, the phenomenon of hypothermia sets in. The temperature regulation malfunctions and a flush of blood rushes to the extremities, causing a false warm sensation. Shortly after this, internal organs begin to shut down and death occurs rapidly. In the 28-31° F water of the North Atlantic, this process likely took no more than 15 minutes for healthier individuals. The elderly and the youngest, as well as the sick, would have lasted much shorter periods of time. Getting out of the frigid water would have helped raise the body temperature for a short while, but prolonged exposure to the cold air would take its toll, albeit more slowly.

3.    Injury: Specifically, from falling or lifebelt misuse. As the tilt of the ship became more intense, more people would have fallen; against other people, parts of the ship, or into the water. The further the fall, the greater the injury. As the stern of the ship became closer to perpendicular, the likelihood increased of muscle strength failing and victims falling from up to 200 feet into the water. At this type of height, bones would break very easily when hitting the surface of the ocean.

§  Additionally, those wearing life belts faced an additional danger. Because of the lack of proper emergency drilling aboard the Titanic, few if any, of the passengers knew the proper way to drop into the water with a life belt on. The ideal way is to cross one’s arms across the chest with hands on the opposing shoulders and then to land feet first. 

4.    Crushing: “Crushing” concerns most or all the body being injured at once, a far more catastrophic event. The people who died from crushing mostly did so in the water, under one of the funnels or under the stern. The falling funnels and stern would have explained why many of the bodies did not float to the surface, as well, since the impact would have pushed the bodies further under water. This would have also forced water into any open body cavities, as well as possibly tearing away life belts or forcing water into the cork of the life belts.  

The chorus of voices around the lifeboats slowly died away as the night wore on. The men, women and children aboard them huddled close to fight off the cold. The closest ship in the area, the British Carpathia, was some 58 miles away and would take several hours to reach them once it had picked up on their initial distress signals. At around 4 am, about two hours after the final lifeboat had been lowered, the Carpathia arrived. 

A lifeboat from the Titanic as it approaches the Carpathia.

Over the course of the next several hours, the Carpathia worked diligently to bring aboard the approximately 700 survivors of the disaster. According to crew members of the ship, the Carpathia was strangely quiet. Perhaps people were too horror stricken to speak. Maybe they were too busy. Or maybe it was that they were in the aftermath of something too big to grasp.

At 8:50 that morning the Carpathia headed on to New York to drop the rescued passengers off safely. The Carpathia took three days to reach New York after leaving the scene of the disaster. Her journey was slowed by pack ice, fog, thunderstorms and rough seas. She was, however, able to pass news to the outside world by wireless about what had happened around 6:15 that morning. The initial reports were confused, leading the American press to report inaccurately. 

Later on the 15^th, confirmation officially came through that Titanic had been lost and that most of her passengers and crew had died. The news attracted crowds of people to the White Star Line's offices around the world. It hit hardest in Southampton, whose people suffered the greatest losses from the sinking. 

"Every man to his post and let him do his full duty like a true Englishman. If the situation calls for it, let us add another glorious page to British history."- Chief Setward Hughes of Carpathia

The Carpathia finally docked at 9:30 pm on April 18^th at New York's Pier 54 and was greeted by some 40,000 people waiting at the dock in heavy rain. Many of Titanic's surviving passengers did not linger in New York but headed onwards immediately to their relatives' homes. Some of the wealthier survivors chartered private trains to take them home, and the Pennsylvania Railroad laid on a special train free of charge to take survivors to Philadelphia.

A depiction of the debarkation of
Titanic survivors from the Carpathia.

Following the debarkation of survivors, the Carpathia was hurriedly restocked with food and provisions before resuming her journey to Fiume, Austria-Hungary (now Rijeka, Croatia.) Her crew were given a bonus of a month's wages by Cunard as a reward for their actions, and some of Titanic's passengers joined together to give them an additional bonus of over what is now $100,000 in today’s money, divided among the crew members.

With the sinking of the Titanic, the safe return of its survivors, and the reporting and investigations into the incident the world shifted. These events signaled the end of confidence in the era and would later be seen as a precursor to the entrance to World War 1. The Titanic also marked the end of a general feeling of confidence in the early 20^th century. Until then men and women felt they had found the answer to a steady, orderly, civilized life in the modern era. The Titanic woke people up and thrust them into the terrifying new modernity of the world.