At 0220 hours April 15, 1912 the largest moving object ever built by man slipped under the waves in the north Atlantic. Nobody knows how many people were still within her hull as she took the final plunge, or how many were in the water about to die from the cold, but over 1,500 lives were lost. The sea makes no distinction between rich and poor taking all who enter her. While a few were pulled from the water, most succumbed to the cold.

When you hit the freezing water the first feeling is shock, everyone who has ever jumped into a cold pool knows the feeling, but when the water is only a few degrees above freezing the feeling is magnified ten fold. With a lifejacket on you don't sink, but if you are not equipped with one your clothes act like a weight, your shoes or boots fill with water and you begin to be dragged down. No matter how much you fight the weight pulls you under. After the initial shock you don't feel the cold, you only struggle to stay above the water. It is only later that the cold takes over.

If you are lucky enough to be pulled from the water it is then that the cold is the only thought in your mind. You begin to shake uncontrollably, this is the bodies way of keeping you moving and awake, this lasts only a few minutes. Soon you loose the feeling in your feet and legs, then the numbness moves further up your body. Your not exactly in pain because you can't feel anything, I guess it is the fear that you feel by then. Next is the almost overwhelming urge to go to sleep, it is a sleep you never awake from. There are worse ways to die, as a matter of fact it is almost peaceful, to fall asleep and never wake up might by what we all would prefer.

If you are rescued the thawing out process is quite painful, it is rather like the feeling you get after the circulation has been cut off to an arm or leg and then the blood flow returns. Any movement sends powerful tingling through your body, of course this is far more intense. It is difficult to explain to anyone who has never been that cold before, but that is how it feels. My first hand knowledge of the experience gives me a unique perspective of what those poor souls in the north Atlantic felt that night.

So on the 100th anniversary of the loss of Titanic we remember those who never awakened from their sleep cradled in the arms of God.