Shipwrecks -- North Atlantic Ocean -- History -- 20th century; Titanic (Steamship)
The suffering on the boat from cold was intense. My neighbor in front,
whom I had pulled aboard, must also have been suffering from
exhaustion, but it was astern of us whence came later the reports
about fellow boatmates who gave up the struggle and fell off from
exhaustion, or died, unable to stand the exposure and strain. Among
the number, we are told by Bride and Whiteley, was the senior Marconi
operator, Phillips, but their statement that it was Phillips’ lifeless
body which we transferred first to a lifeboat and thence to the
_Carpathia_ is a mistake, for the body referred to both Lightoller and
myself know to have been that of a member of the crew, as described
later. Bride himself suffered severely. “Somebody sat on my legs,” he
says. “They were wedged in between slats and were being wrenched.”
When he reached the _Carpathia_ he was taken to the hospital and on
our arrival in New York was carried ashore with his “feet badly
crushed and frostbitten.”
The combination of cold and the awful scenes of suffering and death
which he witnessed from our upturned boat deeply affected another
first cabin survivor, an Englishman, Mr. R. H. Barkworth, whose tender
heart is creditable to his character.
Another survivor of our upturned boat, James McGann, a fireman,
interviewed by the New York _Tribune_ on April 20th, says that he was
one of the thirty of us, mostly firemen, clinging to it as she left
the ship. As to the suffering endured that night he says: “All our
legs were frostbitten and we were all in the hospital for a day at
least.”
“Hagan” also adds his testimony as to the sufferings endured by our
boatmates. He says: “One man on the upturned boat rolled off, into the
water, at the stern, dead with fright and cold. Another died in the
lifeboat.” Here he refers to the lifeless body which we transferred,
and finally put aboard the _Carpathia_, but which was not Phillips’.
Lightoller testified: “I think there were three or four who died
during the night aboard our boat. The Marconi junior operator told me
that the senior operator was on this boat and died, presumably from
cold.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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