Family conquers fire, waves in Greek ferry escape

In this frame taken from a video, from right, Nassos Tsonas, his wife Natasha and their 11-year-old Sebastian walk in the port of Bari, southern Italy, Monday, Dec. 29, 2014, after being rescued from the burning Italian flagged ferry Norman Atlantic. The ferry, underway from the Greek port of Patras to the Italian port of Ancona on the Adriatic, carrying nearly 500 people, caught fire off the Greek island of Corfu early Sunday, trapping passengers on the top decks as gale-force winds and choppy seas hampered the evacuation. Nothing could have prepared the Tsonas family for the terror it would encounter back home on Corfu, an idyllic Greek island beloved of tourists, writers and artists. (AP Photo/APTN)

By Associated Press December 30, 2014 5 min read

BARI, Italy (AP) – Rain and wind lashed the deck of the burning ferry tossing in the Adriatic Sea, and passengers were fighting for the last places on the only lifeboat. Natasha and Nassos Tsonas stood with their two sons amid the chaos, and the only thing left seemed to say goodbye.

They hugged. I love you, they told one another. And they prayed for a miracle to get them off the Norman Atlantic alive.

Suddenly, fire burst up through the deck, and the crush of passengers trying to squeeze into the lifeboat turned heel and fled. Instead of a wall of bodies, what separated the Tsonases from a glimmer of hope now was a wall of flames.

“We’re going to have to run through the fire,” Nassos yelled, “because that’s our only chance to get onto the lifeboat.”

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