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Phone. >> most of us have cell phones with our kids on our contact lists, their phone numbers hadn't been memorized. i didn't know who to call so i called a girl friend i had for 30 years and her husband answered the phone and i said, vernon, we are on a life boat and i don't know if we're going to make it and i said could you just say good-bye to our kids? and he said you're what? you're where? i said just listen to be me, we are in italy, on a life boat being taken off a ship because it looks like we are going to sink. i said, please, just get in touch with our kids and tell them we love the...

Yet, but we had to pay careful attention. it was like stepping on a crooked sidewalk tile. and the people in the hallway were running back and forth shouting in italian and french and german and that helped contribute to the chaos and confusion. by the end of the night, the only way we could walk down any of the corridors was in a corner like this because the ship had tilted over so far. so even just moving a short distance down the hall was really hard to do. >> at some point they announced that everything is not only okay and also we should go back to our cabin. and i was just wearing a real...

Races. so that experience led me to believe that i could swim, you know, 700 yards with three people, dragging them. i could tell that they were in shock, they were afraid, and i kept letting them know that everything is going to be all right. relax and listen to what i'm telling you. and they didn't say anything. they just -- they had their eyes glued on me. >> about an hour after the boat hit, there was an overhead announcement abandon ship. and the people that had been waiting here now started clamoring to get on the boat, so we opened up the gate and just to do that was a big deal because ...

Except at this point in time we see that there's another boat that is coming in above us. that created more tension because we thought at that point in time that that boat was going to literally land on top of us. >> luckily the engine started and we were able to pull away. >> i decided i needed to be at my muster station because the ship was inclining to the right-hand side. after i had taken the register or the roll call of my crew members, i was supposed to be relieved by my superior. however, my superior was an engineer, and he had just come up from the engine room. he was waist deep in wa...

Spilled everywhere. there was food on the floor, it was slippery. >> there were people just sitting on the side crying. and i knew that that was a death trap. so at that moment i looked at benjie and said let's get out of here as fast as we can. and so we did. we ran and we ran out of the other side of the restaurant. >> and while we were in the restaurant figuring out whether we could climb down to our cabin again, the ship pivoted so that when we came out on the other side, we were facing open water. so as far as we knew, we were out in the middle of the sea. and we could feel the ship sinki...