Before lapsing into a coma Suzanne, who had left home after a row with her stepfather, told rescuers she had been held captive for a week.

Seaman Wingo told rescuers that after the Coast Guard's 44-foot-long steel lifeboat rolled over the first time, all four men were still on board.

From his hospital bed, he told rescuers that moments before the collision, he had looked out the window at the snow falling on the city:

They told rescuers that they had no idea where they were when they ran aground.

The captain of the boat, Jack Chale, 26 years old, told rescuers that he believed the 107-foot wood boat hit an object.

But as the terrified passengers crossed to the second boat, it too began to sink, one of the survivors told rescuers.

Some students reportedly told rescuers that the center log snapped as the collapse began.

"We heard you, but we could not make ourselves heard," they told rescuers after being taken off the ship, wrapped in thermal blankets and smiling.

One told of unsuccessful efforts to tell rescuers that an elderly man appeared to be trapped beneath the hull.

As its passengers crossed over from one boat to the secon done, that vessel, too, foundered, a survivor told rescuers.