My heroine of the Costa Concordia disaster
A young Peruvian waitress whose body was recovered from the shipwrecked Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Giglio has been hailed a heroine.
Erika Fani Soriamolina’s body was found by divers on the sixth deck of the vessel wearing the ship’s uniform but no life jacket.
Witnesses said Soriamolina had helped dozens of terrified passengers into lifeboats on the night of the disaster before giving the life jacket to an elderly man.
A tourism graduate, Soriamolina was working on only her third cruise on the Costa Concordia.
The recovery of the young woman’s body ended a desperate search by her parents and sister Madeleine who were among the family members of passengers and crew waiting for news of their loved ones on Giglio…
Seventeen people are now confirmed dead after the cruise ship struck rocks and ran aground on January 13 with 4,200 passengers and crew on board and more than 15 people are still missing.
Time after time, the worst circumstances bring out the best in that class of people termed “ordinary” by our culture, by all the rules that say who is important in our society – and who isn’t. The same applies to my grayhead peer whose life she probably saved.
She didn’t need to wring her hands over ideology, she simply acted to solve a need facing her in the quickest most certain way possible.
Let us remember her courage, her concern for another person in peril.
