Umberto Trotti heard the terrified cries of his wife and children and threw himself from the Costa Concordia into a lifeboat several meters below to join them.
“It was my instinct, my family needed me. I jumped from a height of 3-4 meters. I landed on a German, poor man“, he told AFP ten years following the disaster.
The vast luxury cruise ship had run aground at night in front of the island of Giglio, off the coast of Tuscany, in the middle of icy waters on January 13, 2012. The final death toll was to rise to 32 deaths.
The Trotti family were reluctant to return to the island on Thursday for a remembrance ceremony and torchlight march.
It was supposed to be the best time of our lives
Boat sirens and church bells will sound on the island at 9.45pm to commemorate the moment the ship struck a reef.
Umberto Trotti, 44, and his wife Fjorda, 33, returned a year following the tragedy, but found the experience traumatic. The couple had chosen this cruise to celebrate their honeymoon with their two-year-old daughter Francesca and their six-month-old baby Carlo.
“It was supposed to be the best time of our lives“, confie Umberto. “Those who weren’t on board will never understand. I was in shock, I was walking like a zombie“.
The Concordia, which was carrying 4,229 people from some 70 countries, ran aground while many passengers were dining.
The ship’s captain Francesco Schettino, later sentenced to 16 years in prison, was slow to sound the alarm and was also one of the first to leave the ship. People panicked when the power was cut, plunging the boat into darkness.
The evacuation began more than an hour following the collision, when at this point all the lifeboats on one side of the ship were unusable.
“Huge betrayal”
“We were saved by a cook from Como“in Lombardy (north), recalls Umberto Trotti, whose family was having dinner at the Ristorante Milano when the ship ran aground.
Paolo Maspero, who still wore his chef’s hat, “hugged my six month old son and … led us outside. The water was rising. If he hadn’t come to our aid we would be dead“, underlines Mr. Trotti, who might not swim.
In footage later filmed by the Coast Guard, divers can be seen searching for victims in the flooded restaurant.
Further up on deck number 5, pianist Antimo Magnotta fell from his stool when the boat suddenly tilted to the side. Along with other crew members, he found himself surrounded by terrified passengers.
“A woman came to me with two small children. She was like a tigress, a lioness, she practically assaulted me. She said to me: ‘You must tell me what to do to save my children’“Magnotta told AFP, author of a book entitled”The Costa Concordia pianist“.
He tried to reassure the passengers by telling them that the captain would make an announcement. “I promised them. But Schettino never spoke. It was a huge betrayal“.
The 51-year-old pianist eventually made it down to one side of the ship, but two of his friends died that night.
The musician, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, then decided to move to London, where he found work as a waiter. Now he would like to come back and play for the inhabitants of Giglio Island, but he cannot forgive Schettino “for never saying he was sorry“.
The former captain was convicted in 2015 for his responsibility in several homicides, the maritime accident as well as the abandonment of the ship before all the passengers and the crew were evacuated.
He has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights and his lawyers are expected to ask this year that he serve the remainder of his sentence at home for good behavior.
