Viking Polaris passengers speak out about ‘rogue wave’ crashing into cruise ship

Passengers aboard the doomed Viking Polaris cruise ship that hit a ‘rogue wave’ that killed an American woman and injured several other travelers describe the utter terror of their voyage.

Deborah Terry, 69, and her wife Tamarah Castaneda, 61, were in their stateroom on the ship’s third floor, number 3023, preparing for the night when the huge wave hit the ship around 10:40 p.m.

“It was a horrendous jolt as if the ship had hit a brick wall. We have never had any experience with a rogue wave before,” said Terry, an avid traveler who told DailyMail.com Antarctica was the seventh continent she too had traveled on.

The couple say that the day after the ‘rogue wave’ hit, the captain went on loudspeaker to share the news that a fellow passenger had died.

“Her voice was wavering…muffled,” Terry recalled. “She said, ‘Unfortunately, we lost a passenger in the incident. We’re going to cut the trip short. Let’s take a moment of silence.'”

The couple say the victim, Sheri Zhu, 62, lived in California, had family in Taiwan, and that her husband was also injured. Little is still known about the deceased woman.

Castañeda, a retired firefighter, told DailyMail.com that she initially thought there was an internal explosion on the ship. She said the noise was so powerful that she felt as if ‘two cars collided with each other’.

She said the captain immediately made an announcement over the loudspeakers, saying, ‘Delta Code…Delta Code…This is not a drill…Stay in your cabins.’

Terry said he heard screaming. He then flew over to some crew members and they were told that “the ship was taking on water” and they were sent to the second level of the ship to rescue some of the people from the impacted rooms.

She said that after the horrible noise everything suddenly became ‘unbelievably quiet’.

You couldn’t hear the movement of the ship. I thought we had stopped,’ Castaneda said.

Not to waste time, he said he began to assemble a dry bag of items and then another announcement was made that the ship would continue to move.

Earlier that day, the couple were on a Zodiac Inflatable Rescue Boat (IRB) with ten other passengers traveling to a landmass in Antarctica. There were several ships, all Viking Polaris, at sea doing the same excursion.

Terry said the weather was getting worse, the wind was very strong and the waves were picking up as he boarded the Zodiac heading back to the ship.

It was then that she overheard on the radio, ‘Attention injured person’, and discovered that a passenger from another IRB had been seriously injured and another passenger had fallen overboard into the water.

“The man must have been in the water for a few seconds,” Terry said.

Their ordeal became more harrowing when they learned that the woman’s leg was shattered and she needed to go to a hospital for surgery. The ship’s medical team was unable to care for her properly.

“A helicopter couldn’t get in because of the weather and there were no other boats near us,” Terry said. “They told us that all other activities were cancelled. My wife and I understood, but we were disappointed.’

On the return trip to Ushuaia, Argentina, where the cruise ship originally set sail, the storm began to pick up.

They had to travel through Drake Passage, a body of water that lies between South America’s Cape Horn, Chile, and Antarctica’s South Shetland Islands. Drake Passage is known as one of the most turbulent stretches of ocean in the world.

Terry said that when they first traversed Drake Passage, on the way to Antarctica from Ushuaia, it was treacherous, but on their return the weather was much harsher.

“We were on the third floor and the waves were easily 40 feet high and breaking our window,” Terry said. “I had full confidence that we were going to get through this and that the boat would be able to withstand the waves.”

She said that as the night wore on, the waves became more voracious, but despite the unfolding catastrophe, they continued.

“We went to dinner and our wine glass slipped off the table and shattered,” he said. “People danced and ate and no one thought a catastrophe was happening.”

Until a few hours later the monstrous wave arrived.

The next morning, the couple learned that a passenger had died. The captain, Margrith Ettlin, the first female Viking cruiser captain, made the shocking announcement.

“Her voice was wavering…muffled,” Terry recalled. ‘She said: ‘Unfortunately, we lost a passenger in the incident.’ Let’s shorten the trip. Let’s have a moment of silence.

Terry said the feeling was overwhelming. “I’ve been on cruises to Alaska, the Greek islands, the coast of Italy and I’ve never been on a cruise where a passenger died.”

Castaneda said he thought the woman who perished was the woman who had been injured on the Zodiac, but later realized it was the ‘rogue wave’.

Although the couple did not know the passenger who died, they say another passenger they knew had a conversation with the deceased before the tragedy.

Several of the injured passengers reeling in shock shared with the couple the utter terror they endured.

Castaneda said that many of these people had lost all their belongings, their identification, luggage, everything in their cabin was gone.

“They realized that they could have been swept out of the room and washed out to sea,” he said.

She described the heartbreaking scene. ‘I saw people beaten, bandaged and bruised. One man had stitches on his forehead, another woman had a bandage on her head. Another had a huge lump on his head that appeared to have been hit with a baseball bat.

Nobody had clothes. The crew was trying to get them clothes. One man had a one-piece suit with no shoes.

She told DailyMail.com that a passenger who was in the cabin not far from where the American woman identified as Sheri Zhu, 62, died after being struck by shards of glass, had a near-death experience.

“The ceiling and walls were collapsing, furniture was flying everywhere,” he said. ‘He told me, ‘F***! I’m lucky I didn’t die.

Once the ship returned to Ushiara, the injured woman was transported to a hospital while the other passengers traveled to the city or took a bus tour in a National Park until the crew could take them home.

Terry said from his home in San Diego: ‘We probably won’t do this again. We arrived in Antarctica. Mission accomplished. We don’t have any more vacations planned at this time.’