On March 6, 1987, Alan Rogers and his family found themselves suddenly trapped in complete darkness. The 8-deck, car-carrying ferry they were riding in had capsized in shallow water just 4 minutes into her journey across the English Channel. But for a last minute turn to starboard, the MS Herald of Free Enterprise would have sunk in deeper water and Alan, his wife Sue, their twins William and Emma, and their youngest son Adrian, would have drowned.

 

Instead, as they awaited their eventual rescue, they clung to a table inside the massive hull and listened in horror as 193 of their fellow passengers perished around them. In complete blackness they heard sounds that would haunt them for the rest of their lives; the screams of the dying, the explosions of windows shattering, and the frequent splashes made by those who had lost their grip and fallen to their death into the frigid waters somewhere below them.

​

As their ship took on water, Alan and Sue were taking on something else; something invisible and quite unexpected. They were about to become survivors of one of the worst maritime disasters in history. Nothing could have prepared them for the volume of emotion that would come seeping into them in the years that followed. Their lives, like that doomed vessel, were about to be turned sideways and overrun with shadows. A psychologist who treated them called it survivor guilt. It presented in the forms of nightmares, recurrent flashbacks, and emotional outbursts. Alan developed severe depression. Sue became moody. They both experienced fits of rage and they frequently fought. 

​

“We are a family at war with each other” Alan told a reporter 7 years after the accident. He had become addicted to pain pills. Sue was chain smoking. Both of them had stopped working. Their house and their marriage had fallen into a state of disrepair. “Our happiness was wrecked that day,” Alan gloomily surmised. It was as if they were never rescued from the cold, darkness in that shipwreck. Instead, things just grew colder and darker.

​

Questions to consider:

What do you think is most difficult for this family?

​

The cause of this accident was determined. Officials now know why it occurred. The cause was human error. Why was that determination not sufficient for this family?

​

​

​

​

 

​

 

​

​