MAD WITH EXPOSURE.
“Some of these seven were already mad with exposure, and babbled gibberish, and kept trying to get up and overturn the boat. The other men had to sit upon them to hold them down.
“Two of the men picked up were so overcome with the cold of the water that they died before we reached the Carpathia, and their dead bodies were taken aboard. One woman, who spoke a tongue none of us could understand, was picked up by the boat and believed that her children were lost.
“She was entirely mad. When her children were brought to her on the Carpathia she was wild with joy, and lay down on the children on the floor, trying to cover them with her body, like a wild beast protecting its young, and they had to take her children away from her for the time to save them from being suffocated.”
Miss Caroline Bonnell, of Youngstown, O., one of the survivors, said that passengers who got into lifeboats were led to believe that a steamship was near and that the lives of all would be saved.
Miss Bonnell and her aunt, Miss Lily Bonnell, of London, England, were traveling with George D. Wick, an iron and steel manufacturer of Youngstown, his wife and daughter, Mary Natalie Wick. The women were saved. Mr. Wick went down with the ship. Like hundreds of others, he stood aside to give the women and children first chance.
“Miss Wick and I occupied a stateroom together,” said Miss Bonnell. “We were awakened shortly before midnight by a sudden shock, a grinding concussion. Miss Wick arose and looked out of the stateroom window. She saw some men playfully throwing particles of ice at one another, and realized that we had struck an iceberg.
“She and I dressed, not hastily, for we were not greatly alarmed, and went on deck.
“There we found a number of passengers. Naturally they were all somewhat nervous, but there was nothing approaching a panic. The other members of our party also had come on deck, and we formed a little group by ourselves.