[The following is took place during the sinking of the SS Eastland. Context for the disaster, courtesy of Wikipedia: “The SS Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On July 24, 1915, the ship rolled over onto her side while tied to a dock in the Chicago River. A total of 844 passengers and crew were killed in what was the largest loss of life from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.”]
The traffic cop reported later, “We pulled three women through [that porthole]… and an elderly woman dressed in black was clinging to a beam under the same porthole. Just as I was throwing the rope through the porthole she lost her grip and sank back in the water. Her head sank beneath the water but one hand seized the rope. I dragged her to the porthole but was horrified to discover that the porthole was too small to permit her exit. I made three despairing attempts to extricate her but it was useless.”
The cop urged the heavy-set woman to hold on to the beam until a cutting device could be found to widen the porthole. But the exhausted woman, numb from terror and moaning, finally let go and sank into oblivion.
The captain gaped at the turmoil, paralyzed with emotion, his busy mustache twitching, his eyes stinging from the drizzle. The ship needed to be breached. Those still alive inside the wreck could not fit through the tiny portholes. Muffled cries and pounding sounds from within the vessel agonized the rescuers.
”We got one young girl’s head and arms through a porthole,” reported another policeman, “then managed to get her shoulders through. We could not go further. Then we put a rope around her and let her back into the water. Babies could be seen in the hold of the boat.”
Source:
Bonansinga, Jay R. “Chapter Nine – Daredevil Rex and the Human Frog.” The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy. Citadel Press, 2005. 100-1. Print.
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