Heartbreaking court records reveal exactly how people died on the Costa Concordia

Netflix’s documentary about the Costa Concordia, Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea, heavily focuses on the survivors rather than the 32 victims who sadly lost their lives in the disaster. Harrowing court testimony from Captain Francesco Schettino’s trial shares how each victim passed away.

The Italian cruise ship crashed into some rocks near Giglio Island on 13th January 2012, on the first night of its seven-day tour around the Mediterranean. This created a 53-metre gash in the hull, which flooded the engine room and cut off the ship’s power. It took 48 minutes for the captain to sound the emergency alarm, and he was sentenced to 16 years in jail.

During his trial, a court official read out the names of each deceased passenger and crew member and described how each one died in harrowing detail. Most of the victims passed away from asphyxiation by drowning, and at least one passenger died from hypothermia after entering the cold water.

Credit: Netflix

The list began with Frenchman Francis Servel, who “not having found a place on the lifeboat, threw himself into the sea without a life vest”. He was “sucked toward the bottom of the whirlpool produced by the final flipping over on the right side of the ship, and then died due to asphyxiation,” The Guardian reports. Servel had given his life jacket to his wife because she couldn’t swim.

Another Italian woman, Maria Grazia Trecarichi, “slid off into the sea because of the progressive tilt of the boat” while waiting to be rescued by a lifeboat. She was wearing a life jacket but tragically drowned.

Russel Terence Rebello, a Filipino waiter working on board the cruise ship “remained on the ship to carry out the lowering of the last lifeboats” and either fell or dove into the sea due to the boat tilting, the court official said.

The youngest victim, five-year-old Dayana Arlotti, and her father, William, drowned “‘because they were unable to find any space in a lifeboat on deck four, on the left-hand side, and they were then directed to the right-hand side by crew members on the same deck but as they were crossing the inside corridor, they fell into a hole that had been created when the ship rolled onto its right side”.

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Credit: Netflix

According to a prosecution report, they sadly “dropped into an area that was already flooded and they died from drowning”.

Another woman, Erika Fani Soria Molinala, fell from a lifeboat as it pulled away from the cruise ship due to the tilt. She wasn’t wearing a life jacket and was dragged underwater by the current. Maria D’Introno died after being told to get out of a lifeboat because it was too full. She jumped into the water and was unable to swim.

Giuseppe Girolamo, a musician working on the Costa Concordia, gave up his space on a lifeboat for somebody else and sadly drowned.

Some victims drowned on board the ship as it flooded with water, as they were stuck in the lower levels. Others were “sucked into a vortex” of water, which was created when the cruise ship capsized. There were also fatalities as people tried to walk down the tilting corridors and fell.

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Featured image credit: Netflix