20150408

The Frozen Woman From The Titanic


In March 1988, about 800 miles south of Iceland in the North Atlantic, a Russian destroyer was on maneuvers when a lookout using high powered binoculars to check the horizon spotted an iceberg with an unusual dark spot on it. 

As the iceberg floated closer to the destroyer it became apparent that the dark spot was woman lying on her back on a ledge of the iceberg. She was dressed in outdated clothes - a black jacket and a long black dress.

The captain of the destroyer immediately dispatched a motorboat and two divers to go out and take a closer look. 

After those preliminaries three more men including a doctor went out on the berg and worked for about an hour in an attempt to free the frozen corpse. 

Upon examination it was estimated that the woman was 25-30 years in age. The corpse was perfectly preserved with the exception of one ankle which was blackened by ice damage.

The woman was transferred to a military hospital in Leningrad where a slow defrosting period was engaged. 

The woman was so well preserved that it looked like she was only sleeping. During one point in the defrosting process, and much to the shock of those there, the woman's eyes flew open and became animated. The eyes then rolled backward and the eyelids flickered and closed. The scientists tried to resuscitate the woman but to no avail. 

The pockets of her coat held personal belongings: a broach, a purse with very outdated money dating back to the early 1900s and a number of documents one which identified her as a passenger of the Titanic.