How a baker survived the Titanic by getting drunk (2022)

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When I was about eight years old, I went to look for something I left near a motel swimming pool. I slipped into the deep end of the pool, I didn&#x27;t know how to swim. At first I flailed as fast as I could, instinctively I suppose. This didn&#x27;t help and I realized two things, I was still sinking and was getting tired. So I stopped and just stared ahead. I can&#x27;t say I knew I was going to die, I just knew I was in trouble. Then my feet slowing hit the bottom of the pool, this startled me and it occurred to me I could jump and maybe catch the edge of the pool. For the first time I looked up and saw sky and leaped.<p>I was very lucky and made it the first time. When I got my head above the water, I was so exhausted I stayed there for a few minutes before climbing out of the water. Over the years, I&#x27;ve thought about this many times and, after a many years, came to the conclusion that calming myself after the initial terror probably saved my life. The calming came, I believe, because I was tired and stopped moving.

What did lifeboats of that period stock for emergency rations?<p><i>&gt; Immediately after hearing the collision with an iceberg, the chief baker leapt out of his bunk and began dispatching his staff to stock the lifeboats with bread and biscuits ... Not only did Joughin refuse his own place in a boat, but he and a few other men began forcibly chucking reluctant women into empty seats, likely saving their lives ... while scholars have obsessed about the boozy reputation of Charles Joughin, beneath it all might simply have been a man unwilling to die. “It’s impossible for scientists to predict who will perform and respond well to extreme situations,” noted Cheung. “Some people give up very quickly, others you just cannot seem to kill.”</i>

So the secret is to remain calm and keep hope (both of which are helped by drunkness) besides the obvious &quot;be last to get into the water&quot; and &quot;put on more layers of clothing&quot; (though I didn&#x27;t know that more clothes help even when wet).

&gt; ... who survived history’s worst maritime disaster ...<p>Not the worst maritime disaster by loss of life (90K in Second Punic War storm; 100K in Mongol naval invasion typhoon disaster). Not even the worst of peacetime maritime accidents in the 20th century (Dona Paz, 1987, in the Philippines -- 4386 deaths). [0] There are easily forty WWII sinkings with greater loss of life. [1]<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_maritime_disasters" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_maritime_disasters</a> [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_maritime_disasters_in_World_War_II" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;List_of_maritime_disasters_in_...</a>

Could the many calories of the alcohol help in such situations?<p>Eating fat during a ship sinking accident is probably better, but alcohol has more calories than sugar and having enough energy to survive in the cold is important.

Many, many years ago my friends and I were out in the East Village (NYC).<p>We went out for drinks and then to recharge we walked to a pizzeria (I assume 24 hours) to get a few bites.<p>While I don’t normally drink I found I can hold my own with whiskey and I must’ve had about 10 (expensive!!) double shots over the course of 2 hours. Needless to say I was pretty buzzed.<p>Anyway, another group picked a fight with one of my friends; a hot pizza was thrown at the instigator’s face and a small brawl ensued. While I’m. it physical, when one of my friends tripped I weighed out how to help (mostly made them pause, so friend didn’t get stomped); then shortly after NYPD showed up.<p>Held hand up to show that I wasn’t a threat; saw the pepper spray out and the officer’s panicked face; and I closed my eyes because I knew what would happen.<p>After running away as a group—thankfully the witnesses pointed out the instigators and some sympathetic bouncers let us cut through another club—I also had the presence of mind to buy a quart of milk—reasoning the fat and cool liquid would help—to ready myself against the burn.<p>The point: Some individuals can be pretty trashed but still retain planning skills, concerns of responsibility.<p>The baker clearly fell into this category.<p>Sidenote: I’m glad it didn’t get into my eyes, but wow did the spray burn…even with milk.

This story is crazy&#x2F;funny but it&#x27;s true that being calm is a huge lifesaver. It&#x27;s why one of the elements of military training is not just learning &quot;what to do&quot; but also practicing those things in stressful conditions so that a habit can kick in.<p>I have no military background but do have (and teach) a couple of outdoor hobbies that have on three occasions caused me to think that there was a high chance I would not survive. I still sporadically wake up with nightmares of them years later.<p>Interestingly at each time my initial overwhelming thought was &quot;I&#x27;m an idiot for letting this happen&quot; while without really thinking I took action as I teach my students. In two cases I had a large dog with me and that was probably decisive. In all cases I was alone (not with other people, just the dog) which is also a massive risk factor. Obviously irrelevant to the Titanic case.

&gt;&quot;Most Titanic victims understandably succumbed to mortal panic as soon as they hit the icy water, but [Charles] Joughin was so bombed out of his mind that he didn’t seem to care.<p>Booze didn’t protect Joughin from the cold that night, but <i>it did give him just enough false hope and inflated confidence to think that he could doggy paddle his way out of history’s worst maritime disaster. And in this one case, that turned out to be true.</i>&quot;<p>So, there&#x27;s the Bear Grylls and Wim Hof and Les Stroud (etc.) survival methods -- <i>do everything you can to survive</i> -- but now there&#x27;s <i>also</i> apparently the <i>Charles Joughin survival method</i> -- just get completely sh-tfaced drunk! Get completely hammered, get completely sloshed!<p>And well, <i>that&#x27;s it</i>!<p>There&#x27;s nothing more to do!<p>Let nature (or in this case, the sinking Titanic!) take care of itself!<p>All you gotta do is find some (well, technically a lot of) alcohol -- and imbibe it!<p>And well, <i>that&#x27;s it</i>!<p>There&#x27;s no survival techniques, no preparedness checks, no physical and mental strengthening beforehand, no grit, no training, no exercise, no survival will, no special survial equipment, no nothing required -- just booze!<p>And the guy <i>actually survived!</i> :-) &lt;g&gt; :-)<p>Amazing!<p>(Reminds me of two things: Jackie Chan in &quot;Drunken Master&quot;, and the Hitchhiker Guide To The Galaxy&#x27;s &quot;Don&#x27;t Panic&quot; advice...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt0080179&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.imdb.com&#x2F;title&#x2F;tt0080179&#x2F;</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Don&#x27;t_Panic" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27...</a> )<p>Also, I vote that this is the <i>funniest story</i> that I&#x27;ve read on HN in a long time! &lt;g&gt; :-) &lt;g&gt;

I find it hard to believe he survived in the water for that long.

I find it difficult to believe. It was April -2C air temp in the open ocean and water temp probably 0C or 1C. Even with clothes on or relaxed you&#x27;d be dead in 15 minutes.<p>I live in Canada on the coast and there are many news articles of people drowning after falling into cold water. And those people were in modern cold weather clothing.

The nice thing about being calm is, it prevents you from doing worse things from the worst.<p>Yes, the worst could be worse if you got panic.

The title is a bit strange. Maybe the decision to get and cinch his lifebelt was more important than getting drunk?

Pretty incredible story. So he really got drunk , stayed calm and survived the sinking of the titanic !

Mind over matter.

&gt; cannot seem to kill<p>I live in a cold Canadian city that has a substantial population with drug addictions.<p>I was talking to a cop one night (he was off duty) and he was telling me about how you eventually learn some of the regular offenders names and stories. He told me how tough some of these guys are. How he&#x27;d pick one up for stealing and he&#x27;s out in -30C with ganggreen on his leg.<p>&quot;Cockroach energy&quot; he called it.

Something to think about during the next us-east-1 outage

&quot;&quot;&quot; The baker, in fact, had unwittingly become a textbook example of how to survive a shipwreck.<p>First, he delayed immersion; among those who went into the water that night, Joughin was the absolute last to get wet.<p>Second — and most important — he managed to stay calm and strategize a way out of the water. &quot;&quot;&quot;<p>I&#x27;ll consider this next time I&#x27;m in a shipwreck.

&gt; Then, he used the first rays of dawn to spot an overturned lifeboat set adrift in the Titanic’s chaotic final minutes. He paddled over, pulled himself out of the water<p>This is wrong, it was worse, there was no room for him so he hung on the side in the water<p>2:20 Titanic sunk. Sunrise was around 5:10am and he found the lifeboat to hang onto, then half a hour later another life boat arrived. So three hours.<p>You can read his account here -<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.titanicinquiry.org&#x2F;BOTInq&#x2F;BOTInq06Joughin01.php" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.titanicinquiry.org&#x2F;BOTInq&#x2F;BOTInq06Joughin01.php</a>

Come on. Getting drunk will lower your survival chances for sure. It counterintuitively doesn&#x27;t warm you up, waste precious energy while the body fights intoxication, and you are more likely to injure yourself in anything requiring body coordination.