Titanic 100th Anniversary: Lessons in Safety, Heroism, Cowardice & Common Sense

On the eve of the sinking of the Titanic, we look back at some incredible stories of survival and bravery and offers some valuable tips to travelers of today.

April 10th, 2012 – One hundred years ago today that great and doomed ship set sail with 2200 passengers and crew on board. Four days later, 1500 were dead and a mere 700 survived the sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic. Mostly women and children survived, although scores more could have been saved.

Titanic’s Legacy

Some brave and terrible decisions were made that night: men gave way to women and children, the band played nobly on, stoic gentlemen donned white tie for their final hours and smoked cigars, and yet boats were lowered half-filled, and although all were allegedly supplied with lamps, most were extinguished by survivors in order to not become attractive beacons for dying swimmers after the sinking. Many drowning and freezing victims were ruthlessly pushed away with oars. The evidence shows that lifeboats ignored megaphone calls from the Captain to come back closer and save others. Keeping a light on when others have doused theirs increases the chances of your own boat being swamped because more swimmers will make it their target. It seems the irresistible urge for survival was to follow suit when other boats were disguising their location. Titanic Lamp trimmer Samuel Hemming, who survived the sinking, stayed on the ship to the last, and later told the US Inquiry of climbing the officers’ quarters roof to help free Collapsible B. While there, Hemming stated: “I went to the bridge and looked over and saw the water climbing upon the bridge. I went and looked over the starboard side, and everything was black… I could not see any boats.” Not a single survivor who went into the water later stated that: “I swam for a (boat’s) light.” And yet when the Carpathia arrived on the scene, the boats were lit up.

How can any of us say how we would react in a crisis of this sort, but it is worth considering what we would do in an emergency situation when we travel on a train, ship, by bus, car or airplane. We travel so much, and for the most part without much ado, but there are, and no doubt will be, occasions when some of us we will be called upon to react quickly, decisively and responsibly in order to save our own lives and others. The tragedy of the Titanic continues to loom large in our collective conscience because we all know at any time that could be us.

Blink: How We Make Split Second Decisions

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink, he talks about rapid cognition, about the kind of thinking that happens in a blink of an eye and the role intuition, experience, knowledge and training play in our subconscious psyche. In the book, a researcher tells the story of a firefighter in Cleveland who answered a routine call with his men. The fire was thought to be in the kitchen in the back of a one-and-a-half story house in a residential neighborhood. The firefighters broke down the door, laid down their hose, and began dousing the fire with water. It should have abated, but it didn’t. As the fire lieutenant recalls, he suddenly thought to himself, “There’s something wrong here,” and he immediately ordered his men out. Moments after they fled, the floor they had been standing on collapsed. The fire had been in the basement, not the kitchen as it appeared. When asked how he knew to get out, the fireman thought it was ESP, which of course it wasn’t. What is interesting to Gladwell is that the fireman could not immediately explain how he knew to get out. From what Gladwell calls “the locked box” in our brains, our fireman just “blinked” and made the right decision. In fact, if the fireman had deliberated on the facts he was seeing, he would have likely lost his life and the lives of his men. It took well over two hours of questioning for the fire lieutenant to piece together how he knew to get out: First, the fire didn’t respond as it was supposed to; second, the fire was abnormally hot; third, it was quiet when it should have been noisier given the heat. In fight or flight survival mode, it would seem the brain works faster than the body making split-second decisions that you don’t have time to think about.

In 1912, Lawrence Beesley bought a second-class ticket on the Titanic and like most men that night had either chosen or was forced to stay on board as others made their escape. According to his Grandson Nicholas Wade, Beesley was standing on the top starboard deck with a large group of men when a rumor went around that the men were to be taken off on the port side. Almost everyone moved across the ship, except Beesley and two others. Shortly after, he heard a cry of “Any more ladies?” from a lifeboat swinging level with the deck below. Leaning over the edge of his deck, he looked down at the boat. “Any ladies on your deck?” a crew member asked him. There were not, so Beesley was advised to jump in and in doing so, changed the course of his fate. Later, he wrote: “I can personally think of no decision arising from reasoned thought that induced me to remain rather than to cross over.” And then added, “I am convinced that what was my salvation was a recognition of the necessity of being quiet and waiting in patience for some opportunity of safety to present itself.” So was it luck or cunning that saved Beesley? As his Grandson writes: “In any event, I owe my existence to the fact in those few critical moments he had the confidence to think differently from the crowd.”

Elsewhere on the ship, Isidor and Ida Straus were seen standing close together – Ida under the protection of her husband’s arm – calmly waiting their inevitable fate. The crew tried to wrench her away from her husband but she would not go, saying: “We have lived together many years. We will die together.” Unlike the shamed Captain of the Costa Concordia disaster who says he “tripped” and fell into one of the lifeboats, Captain Edward Smith and most of his crew, bravely went down with the Titanic calling out to survivors to “Be British!” and was soon after seen helping others struggling in the water, refusing an opportunity to save himself.

The “Miracle on the Hudson”

US Airways Flight 1549 turned Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger into an overnight hero, landing the crippled Airbus A320 on the Hudson River and getting all 150 passengers off safely before sinking into the freezing waters. It wasn’t just luck that saved the day, it was a combination of key factors: Captain Sullenberger’s rigorous training, cool head, and rational decision-making; the calmness of the crew and kindness of the passengers as they made their escape in an orderly fashion and the swift and professional actions of the first responders.

According to Dave Sanderson, a Hudson survivor, four things contributed to the outcome that day: teamwork, leadership, resourcefulness and the power of faith. Sanderson was actually scheduled to be on a later flight, but now admits, “I was supposed to be on that flight for a reason.” Within minutes of landing, the frigid water rose from his ankles to knees. Seated four rows behind one of the plane’s wings, Sanderson was among the last passengers to exit the sinking aircraft. “I didn’t have any feeling in the lower half of my body because I was waist deep in water for seven or eight minutes,” he said. When the plane crashed, all the seats collapsed. Passengers were able to walk on the seats to get to the exits. He said he remembered his late mother telling him, “Do the right thing and God will take care of you.” “I wasn’t intending to be the last guy out of the plane,” he said. “But I waited a few seconds for the women and children in the back.” When he tried to get out of the plane, there was no room on the wing for him and the lifeboat was already full. He said that he thought about the Titanic, “I felt the water go over my head and thought, ‘I am going down with this plane,’ and I started to swim.” Sanderson swam eight or nine strokes to a ferry, and was pulled from the water. “Thank God my mom and dad gave me swimming lessons,” he said. “If they hadn’t given me swimming lessons, I wouldn’t have gotten off that plane.”

“One of the biggest lessons about this whole thing is teamwork,” he said. He encouraged a woman standing on the wing to pass her infant to another woman in the lifeboat so they all could get in safely. “It took a lot of faith for her to give her baby up to somebody she didn’t even know,” he said. Reflecting on his ordeal, he said: “One hundred and fifty-five people who did not know each other, pulled together as a team and pulled off something that’s never been pulled off in the history of aviation, a successful water landing where no one got injured. Everybody checked their egos at the door.”

So next time you travel, pay attention to the safety instructions and emergency exits; be nice to the steward, hostess or ticket-collector; greet your fellow travelers with a smile, and don’t roll your eyes at that screaming child kicking the chair behind you because in an emergency your lives may depend on each other and one of you may be grateful for the other’s help… or not? So ask yourself now, what will you do then and be prepared to act to the best of your abilities, and perhaps even follow the examples set by those beautiful lost souls who lay down their lives at the bottom of the Atlantic 100 years ago in an age of chivalry and stronger morals than today.

7 Tips for Surviving Any Major Trauma or Life Challenge by Maryann Bruce.

Maryanne Bruce was on US Airways Flight 1549 and had already survived a tsunami in Hawaii, a plane trip through a hurricane off Long Island, an earthquake in California and an avalanche while skiing in Colorado. She also worked in the twin towers during the 1993 terrorist attack and was midflight from Charlotte, N.C., to Boston on 9/11 and watched the two buildings smolder from the jet’s window.

1. Pay full attention to your surroundings

In an emergency situation, always be aware of your surroundings such as the location of nearby exits (assuming you are in a confined space like an office meeting room, movie theatre, plane), the people near you and any obstacles that could get in the way of your escape. The same principles apply to any traumatic experience in life, even without the impending physical danger. Wherever you are when a dangerous or difficult time comes upon you, it’s always critical to follow what’s happening, who’s talking, what’s being asked and how to do everything you can to ensure your own safety and the well-being of others.

2. Stay calm and focused

When trauma or tragedy looms in the air, it’s easy to freeze or panic. Keeping your cool, though, makes it possible to know what’s called for at any time.

3. Control what you can control

Whether you are in an accident, or dealing with a major medical crisis of your own or a loved one, there will always be factors beyond your control. At the same time, there are always things you can control. Remember to focus all of your energy and attention on what you can control and don’t worry about what you can’t control.

4. Take charge of yourself

We sure were not in charge when Sully Sullenberger was bringing down that plane over the Hudson. We had to let go, to trust in whomever or whatever force was guiding our destiny. But we could take charge of our own attitude and how we would react to the crisis, before and after the landing. All of us can do that in any trying time.

5. It’s okay to cry – later

When death or danger looms, our emotions will naturally rise to the surface. The urge to cry and stay with our tears is real, but if we remind ourselves that there is a time to cry, but not at the moment when our faculties are most needed, it can relax us and enable us to be at our best during critical moments of action and decision.

6. Find the humor

It may sound ironic that humor may bubble up even in dark and somber moments, but it very often does. Laughter is a great way to release fear and/or pain. While maintaining respect for those around you, showing your lighthearted spirit often can help others stay calm and focused too.

7. Believe there is a way

I have said this many times and it’s true. When Flight 1549 was going down in the Hudson River, I never believed we were going to die. I honestly believed there would be a way out. Sometimes there isn’t, but recognizing that doom is not always the result of a hard time can be very powerful.

To read more stories about the Hudson survivors check out their book: Brace for Impact.