Local Woman Knows First Hand The Terror Of Being On A Sinking Ship

NOVI (WWJ) - The known death toll from Friday's grounding of a luxury cruise liner off Italy's coast has risen to five. Authorities say divers searching the submerged part of the Costa Concordia found the bodies of two elderly men still in their life jackets.

Meanwhile, a Novi woman who survived the Andrea Doria-Stockholm collision off the coast of Massachusetts in 1956, Pierette Simpson, tells WWJ what we should have learned by now.

"We certainly should have learned to take the lifeboat drills very seriously. And from what I've read, they did not have a drill on the Concordia for four days so people were not prepared."

Pierette Simpson was just 9 years old then ... coming to America from Italy with her grandparents.

Now, 64 and a retired French teacher at Detroit Country Day, she finds this latest incident with the Concordia shocking.

Simpson says that the captain of the Andrea Doria, CaptainCalamai, did everything in his power to carry out this incredibly difficult sea rescue.

View Gallery of Costa Concordia photos.

Simpson says ship crews today should have better training.

Forty-six people died when the Andrea Doria sank. Simpson will talk about shipwrecks at the first international marine forensics symposium in April.

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