Coroner's Report: Titanic and related media

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Coroner's Report: Titanic (2:01)

When the "unsinkable" ocean liner Titanic was lost after hitting an iceberg on April 15, 1912, lifeboats saved only 700 of her passengers. What did the 1,500 people who went down with the ship experience in the icy waters of the North Atlantic?

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Ice water, refreshing in a glass but swimming in it could kill you. So the poor soul on the Titanic jumps into the water and the shock is just absolutely overwhelming. The ambient temperature was approximately 31 degrees and so is the water of the North Atlantic. Cold, that's that extreme, is actually perceived by your body as pain. It's not that much different than being burned alive, at least initially. People who have survived plunging into water that cold, have described it as being stabbed everywhere, simultaneously with a thousand knives. The person in absolutely top physical condition, plunging into waters as cold as 31 degrees might survived for about 10 minutes, if they were really lucky. Human beings have a temperature of approximately 98 degrees. If you fall into a water that is 70 degrees cooler, there's just no place to hide from waters of that temperature. His body will begin to shutter uncontrollably in a futile attempt to maintain his temperature. His teeth will begin to chatter and very quickly he's gonna lose control of his arms and legs. The way the body works to try to preserve your temperature is to shutdown from the extremities on in. First your fingers and your toes, then your hands and your feet. After a few short moments, you're gonna find it very difficult to hold on to whatever piece of debris that you've managed to cling to because your arms are gonna be numb, your legs won't kick anymore. So the passengers that went into the water without life preservers on, drowned. But passengers that fell into the water wearing life preservers, stayed afloat long enough to freeze to death. Your heart-rate, your respiration, your metabolic rate, everything just slows down, slower and slower until you drift off.

Please note: This is an automated transcript and may contain transcription errors.

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