April 14, 1912. The Titanic disaster.
first of all – a scientific fact about the human body – Alcohol may make your body feel warm inside, but it causes your blood vessels to expand, thus creating a rapid heat loss from the surface of your skin. Generally, alcohol increase the risk of hypothermia, but Charles Joughin seems to be an outlier.
Charles Joughin, the Titanic’s chief baker, decided to take a nap after another busy day working on the Titanic. While napping, a harsh shake-up woke Charles. He felt the ship rumble.
After some tremors, the ship kept moving. Charles realised something was wrong but did not let it interfere with his rest.
At 11:35 at night, a few minutes after the shake-up, he was called to come to the command bridge. There he learned some disturbing information. The captain sent a crew to inspect the damage on the lower deck and it turned out that 90 feet from the wall just came out of place and water began to seep through the rivets.
The news did not cause any real panic.
The people on board the Titanic believed that the compartments were strong enough to handle glaciers. But now, in a time of crisis, it has become clear that this is not the case. The fourth, fifth and sixth sections were filled with water.
The captain realized that the fate of the Titanic was doomed.
Joughin, did not wait long. He woke up his bakery team and began collecting all the remaining loaves of bread to equip the lifeboats.
Charles Joughin realized that as a crew member there would be no room on the lifeboats and as the ship began to tilt at a frightening angle, He decided to go down to his cell and drink a large amount of whiskey (there were evidences talking about two whole bottles). He then returned to the deck and while intoxicated began to push people into the lifeboats. After he finished pushing people in the hope that they would be rescued, in addition, he threw chairs into the water in the hope that the chairs would be used as floating devices.
Shortly afterwards he jumped into the water, his body did not sink. Because of the amount of alcohol – he began to hallucinate and somehow reached the a rescue craft that already had 25 people on it.
The fact that Joughin survived is no less than a miracle.
Water temperatures were two degrees bellow zero ( Celsius -2 °C = 28.4°f Fahrenheit).
Most people in the water died of hypothermia after 15-20 minutes. But Joughin remained in the water for about 4 hours until he was finally pulled by a lifeboat.
Joughin believed that his miraculous survival was made possible by the large amount of whiskey he drank – We have no proof this is true, but also we have no way of contradicting this story.
Unfortunately 1,517 other passengers from the Titanic did not have such luck, and they died in the water, sober and freezing cold.
The sinking of the Titanic is not the last drowning disaster experienced. He was on the ship Oregon when it sank in Boston’s port. He survived that disaster too. Although this time it is not known whether we used any bottles of whiskey.
Joughin died at the age of 78, and he is buried alongside his wife in the Cedar Lawn Cemetery, in Paterson, New Jersey.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joughin
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic