Survived One Ship Disaster… Only to Face Another on Titanic’s Final Voyage
I have been learning about some of the individual stories of the people who were aboard the Titanic. One story that caught my eye was that of Ramón Artagaveytia.
Ramón was born on the 14th of July 1840 in Montevideo in Uruguay. He became a businessman and was able to live a comfortable life. Unfortunately his life was changed on Christmas Eve in 1871 when he boarded a steamship called the America in Uruguay. During the journey a serious fire broke out, it was reportedly caused by dangerously high boiler pressure. As you can only imagine, panic spread as flames and smoke filled the ship. In the chaos, Artagaveytia managed to jump into the sea and swim for his life. Many people were badly burned, and many did not survive. Although he did escaped, the trauma of the disaster affected him, and it is said that after that night he avoided travelling by water for many years. I can’t say I blame him.
By 1905 he had moved to Buenos Aires in Argentina to manage a family farm. More than four decades after the terrible disaster, he finally felt able to travel once again. In 1912 he sailed to Europe to visit relatives and then made the decision to go the United States. On the 10th of April 1912 he boarded the RMS Titanic at Cherbourg as a first-class passenger.
When the ship struck the iceberg only a few days later, the situation must have brought back all the terrible memories. According to one account, he was seen speaking calmly with other passengers during the night of the disaster. Tragically, he sadly did not survive. His body was later recovered from the Atlantic and returned to South America, where he was buried in Montevideo.
It makes me wonder about destiny and chance in history. Do you think surviving one disaster would have made you avoid the sea forever, or would you have eventually found the courage to travel again?
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