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The tragic Costa Concordia disaster has been revisited in Netflix documentary Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea, but one of the most terrifying stories from that night is barely touched on in the show.
On January 13, 2012, the Italian cruise ship struck rocks off Giglio Island, tearing a 53-metre gash in its hull. The impact flooded the engine room, cut power to the vessel and left thousands of people trapped onboard who abandoned all hope of rescue and swam 100 meters to shore through freezing, pitch-black water.
Despite the severity of the collision, it took Captain Francesco Schettino 48 minutes to sound the emergency alarm. By the end of the disaster, 32 people had died. Schettino was later convicted of manslaughter, causing a maritime accident and abandoning ship, receiving a 16-year prison sentence. Five other workers were also convicted.
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While most of the 3,206 passengers and 1,023 crew members escaped aboard lifeboats or were rescued by helicopter, a small number decided they could wait no longer. With the crippled liner lying just 100 meters from the shore of Giglio Island, they plunged into the icy sea and swam for their lives in total darkness.
Singer Ian Fraser, who was working onboard the Costa Concordia, told the BBC he realized he had no choice but to jump into the freezing water after those onboard had "run out of options."
He explained, "I was sitting in my cabin and heard this terrible juddering sound. It was very clear something had gone wrong. It was a complete blackout, that's when everyone screamed.
"We were standing ankle-deep in water, and it was clear we were running out of options. When the lights came back on everyone said, 'Right, go, now'. It was our window of opportunity.
"I was thinking 'What am I doing here?'. Two hours ago I was sitting in my cabin, now I'm swimming away to save my life. It was dreadful and surreal."
Canadian couple Laurence and Andrea Davis initially made it into a lifeboat, but after it began filling with water to knee height, they decided they had no option but to jump into the sea.
Their son-in-law, David Hornstein, later told the Vancouver Sun that Laurence deliberately swam backstroke so he could keep watching the huge cruise ship behind them, fearing it might capsize in their direction.
He said, "Laurence did a back crawl while Andy was doing front crawl. He said he couldn't help but look back. The boat was tipping inward toward land, the way they were swimming. He was worried it was going to come down on them.
"It was pretty traumatic, pretty frightening. They lost everything. They really just had the clothes they swam in."
Speaking to CBC, Laurence recalled the moment they realized they had to leave the lifeboat shortly after midnight as the evacuation stalled.
He recalled, "I thought to myself, that's it for us. Like what's going to happen? We have to make a decision. I said to my wife Andrea, I said, 'Come Andy, we've got to go.'
"So I just held her with my one arm, and swimming with my other arm, and kicking, but I was just finding it very uncomfortable. I just said, 'Kick Andy! Kick! Swim! We've got our children to look forward to!' And I just pushed and pushed, and eventually I just saw the boat coming down and said 'We've got to clear this or we're going to drown'."
By the time they reached land, the couple had no strength left.
Among the first people waiting on Giglio Island was British resident Lisa Cameron Smith, who spotted the stricken cruise ship from her bedroom before heading to the shoreline with her husband and six-year-old daughter to help.
She described watching passengers leap into the sea before struggling onto the island's rocks after making the freezing swim.
She told The Times, "After a few minutes, people started jumping from the ship and came to the rocks — very wet and desperate. It was very difficult to get out of the water. It was very slippery, especially in shoes.
"We took our shoes off and starting taking people out of the water. People were really in panic. We helped. There was good moonlight. People had flashlights from their lifejackets."
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