SURVIVORS' STORIES.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 1 June 1914, Page 5

SURVIVORS' STORIES.

•QUEBEC, May 31. Mies Townshend swam alongside Clinton Burt, a motor-car manufacturer, until he caught a suitcase, which held up Miss Townshend until the Storstad picked them up. Mrs Price, Miss Townshend's aunt, was lost. After being rescued, Miss Townsherid busied herself amongst the rescued, heroically aiding the stricken;

An Englishman, Duncan, declared that every on© of the crew acted like men, attempting to rouse the women. They secured numbers of lifebelts on deck for when those below should reach there.

When Duncan was thrown into the water by the ship's lurch, five men attempted to grasp him, and he was obliged to fight them off, otherwise he would have been drowned.

The rapidity with which the vessel careened and sank made it impossible to do more than was done. The whole thing was like a nightmare, from which one might awaken at any moment. The thick fog, dark waterß, and the sinking ship seemed wholly unreal, and the passengers did not grasp the danger until they w«r« thrown from their bunks or torrents of icy water fell in cascades down the companion-ways, drowning people before they were able to make a single effort to save themselves.

Some women describe in horrorstricken tones how they slid down the deck into the icy waters, sinking, and coming to the surface, grasping wreckage, and being dragged into the boa^s half unconscious. One woman described the sensation as resembling that of being chloroformed in order to undergo a surgical operation, then reviving to find that death had taken some loved one.

Meanwhile the rescued are being cared for at Quebec. Many lost everything they possessed.