Many passengers fortunate enough to get into the life-boats found themselves garbed only in their night clothes. No baggage was saved. The condition of the survivors was pitiable. Some had broken arms and legs, and all had suffered terribly. L. A. Gosselin, a prominent lawyer from Montreal, saved himself by clinging to a raft.
PICKED UP THE CAPTAIN
Ernest Hayes, an assistant purser, said that he leaped from the promenade deck a minute or two after the collision. He climbed into No. 3 life-boat, which, a few minutes later, picked up Captain Kendall.
J. W. Black and his wife, who live in Ottawa, jumped together before the ship sank. They got on deck too late to find places in a life-boat. They decided to jump and take their chances. Fortune was with them, for it sent wreckage to Mr. Black’s hand, and he kept his wife above water until a life-boat reached them.
William Measures, of Montreal, a member of the Salvation Army band, jumped overboard and swam to a life-boat. A young Englishman said there was a terrific shock when the Storstad struck. He had time only to throw a dressing gown over his pajamas and to awaken two of his friends.
To pluckily leap from the deck of the sinking liner and swim around for nearly an hour in the river, and then to fall dead from exhaustion on the deck of the Eureka, was the fate of an unknown woman.
Fourteen minutes settled the whole affair. With the decks careening, the captain, officers and crew strove like fiends to release the boats. One after one, laden with a mass of humanity, sped away. The Storstad followed suit with as much ability, but the time was brief.
Boats there were a plenty, but time there was none.
When the listing increased and the nose of the ill-fated liner twisted skyward, panic seized upon the horde of persons, and once more a loud, prolonged burst of agony from several hundred throats vibrated through the fog.