AT SEA WITH A LIFE-PRESERVER.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 273, 24 April 1873, Page 3

AT SEA WITH A LIFE-PRE-SERVER.

The " New York Times " gives the following as a recent " experience :"— " When I knew the steamer was sure to founder I secured a life-preserver, and I must inform you that I saw many of them rendered useless by the breaking of the tapes. Whether they snapped from the excited actions of the passengers in securing them, or whether they were rotten, I cannot say, but I am rather inclined to think the strings were bad. When I plunged into the water, leaping from the vessel's deck into the sea, I did not go far down. I was very soon on the surface. I found the life-preserver very buoyant, though I discovered I could make very little progress with it. Without being a good swimmer, I am used to the water, and know how to hold my breath and take it in at such intervals as not to swallow salt water. The sea in the Sound was running very high — saytrom 12 feet to 15 feet high — and very soon I found it difficult to make any headway. As it was pitch dark, the water only illuminated now and then by its own phosphorescence, of course I had no obiect in swimming anywhere in particular. I knew what I had to do was to remain quiet, and try and find, if possible, a floating timber which I hoped would have been detached from the wreck. Very soon I experienced a feeling of intense cold, which froze the very marrow in my bones. Then the violence of the storm seemed to increase, and the difficulty of evading the waves which broke over me became more and more troublesome. I kept a pretty upright position, which was due to my having on a heavy pair of shoes, which I think were of some advantage to me. But after a while, as my lower extremities grew cold and powerless, the tendency of the sea to throw me sideways increased, and do what I could I lose my balance. Gradually I felt myself growing weaker and weaker, and began to give up all hope. I fancy some exertions given to others as unfortunate as myself had overtaxed my powers of endurance. When first in the water I had though that since the steamer had sunk in the track where so many other steamers and vessels were passing, the chances of my being picked up were pretty good, but not seeing any, and the night getting darker, I commenced to despair. I still clung on to life terribly, and though a creeping languor was stealing over me, battled all I could. I was conscious that my strength was leaving me, and now, do what I could, the waves would dash over me, and I became more careless as to when I should breathe. I was conscious, too, of having swallowed a great deal of water, and was commencing to have a sick feeling coming over me. After having been in the water two hours or more, there came floating towards me a plank. If it bad not drifted near me I should never have reached it. With a terrible effort I secured it, but hardly was I on it before a wave dashed me off. Then I gave myself up for lost. There was no feeling of resignation about it — rather a suspension of all faculties — not indifference as to whether I should live or not, but a semi-coma-tose condition— ihat of physical exhaustion. After I had lost sight of the plank for some minutes and given myself up for lost, it came near me once more, and with my last effort I seized it with my heel. Then my lifepreserver snapped one of its straps and came over my shoulder, around my head, and I was almost drowned. Fortunately, another wave came and threw it back in its former position. How long I clung with one heel to the plank Ido not know. Even then I did not feel my condition was much improved. Again the feeling of utter indifference crept over me, when suddenly the recollection of a certain document which I had left in my safe at home flashed with vividness through my mind. Every word and line of it, even the character of the paper, the erasures and corrections made, how my signature looked — all passed before my eyes. I felt that my business was unfinished, that I must live to carry out my engagements ; and with a terrible effort, the very last one — for had I not succeeded I should have dropped back into the water lifeless — I at last got o» the plank, and was eventually saved. My experience with a life-preserver is this : In a calm sea I could have kept up, not without great inconvenience of course, for hours, but in a rough sea, though staying on the surface of the water, you can be drowned with a lifepreserver around you. All it is intended for is to buoy a person up until other succor comes. Of course if I had not had my life-preserver on I should have never found the plank, but with the life-preserver on alone I should have perished. All those who had life-preservers on alone, and found no other help, with one exception were drowned. Their bodies floated on through the storm and came to shore held up by the cork, but theii heads had fallen beneath the surface of the water. Those who used cor! mattresses were, I believe, almost al saved. Though the peril would be, o course, very great with either the or dinary life-preservers or the cork, mat tress in a rough sea, I should verj much prefer the latter." The eorres pondent who sends this statement ob serves that life-preservers may be store< away in a ship for 10 years, pass in spectiqn time and time again, and b worthless from the casing having rotted

so that with the least strain they will come to pieces, and that they are often stowed away in parts of the ship where very few could get them in case of a sudden accident and a rusii for them.

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