[The following is took place during the rescue efforts following 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.”]
By late afternoon the recovery workers began to crumble under the tremendous strain.
Fred Swigert, one of the firemen who had been at the scene from the earliest moments, found himself part of a bucket brigade – lifting body after body from the hull, gently handing them off to stretcher bearers. Swigert had been at it for nearly three hours, and his limbs had grown numb. His hands and back ached. His mind had gone blank. In the words of one observer, he had become an “automaton.”
Then one of the divers handed up a body of a little girl, “her flimsy dress a pitiful, clinging shroud.” Swigert placed the body on a stretcher, paused, and looked down at the child’s blanched face. The fireman gasped. Rearing backward suddenly, jaw trembling, Swigert tried to say something but couldn’t get any words out. He staggered for a moment, then collapsed onto the weathered planks, unconscious.
The girl was his daughter.
Source:
Bonansinga, Jay R. “Chapter Fourteen – Sackcloth and Ashes.” The Sinking of the Eastland: America's Forgotten Tragedy. Citadel Press, 2005. 164. Print.
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