Shipwreck

I read about this guy who survived a shipwreck in 1871. He was traumatized by it for the next 40 years.

He wrote a letter to a friend, expressing how relieved he was about the fact wireless messages could be sent from the new ship he was traveling aboard. This was new technology that was introduced to commercial ships in the early 1900’s.

“You can't imagine, Enrique, the security the telegraph gives. When the America sank, right in front of Montevideo, nobody answered to the lights asking for help. The ones that saw us from the ship Villa del Salto, did not answer to our light signals. Now, with a telephone on board, that won't happen again. We can communicate instantly with the whole world.”

He also wrote:

'At last I will be able to travel and, above all, I will be able to sleep calm. The sinking of the America was terrible!... Nightmares keep tormenting me. Even in the most quiet trips, I wake up in the middle of the night with terrible nightmares and always hearing the same fateful word: Fire! Fire! Fire!...I have even gotten to the point where I find myself standing in the deck with my lifebelt on...'

In 1912 he died in the sinking of the Titanic.

Read more about the story, here.