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March 26, 2006 at 11:41 PM
What would you do if you were trapped on burning ship in
the middle of the ocean.
For one Missouri woman a vacation with her cousin turned
into a life death struggle for survival.
Last week A Star Princess cruise ship on it's way from
Grand Cayman to Jamaica caught on fire, allegedly due to
a discarded cigarette.
This is the amazing of Mary Jo Dean of Kahoka Missouri
and how she survived that deadly day.
24 hours before the fire Mary Jo says she shared one of
her fears with her cousin.
" I said you know it'd be something if somebody would
be smoking on this and maybe flip a cigarette, thinking
it could go right in the ocean but of course you decks went
out drop down , went out drop down. That worried me, the
cigarettes worried me. I worried about that.
That worry became strangely prophetic around 3am Thursday
morning, when they heard a bang outside.
But they heard people in the hall saying" hurry, hurry.
Mary's cousin looked down below their balcony and saw the
fire. They quickly grabbed some clothes and their life jackets
and headed out into the hallway.
" Then she opened the door and it was just black with
smoke, we couldn't see nothing. She slammed the door shut,
ran back, hollered to the fire fighters " The hall
is full of smoke". And he says ...." Get out in
that hall and run, run, run."
Now began a desperate crawl along the hallway for Mary
Jo and her cousin.
" We crawled for quite a while and finally I just
dropped down on the floor and I fell back on my side, I
was laying down and I said, " Sharon, I'm gonna die
right here. I can't go on any further."
But her cousin and her faith gave Mary Jo the strength
to go on.
" She says. " Come, come on, come just come.
And it felt like somebody took me up and put me back on
my hands. And all this put me back on my hands. And all
this time I was praying that Jesus would help me through
this, bring us all out safely. I was praying for everybody
on that ship."
Mary Jo's clothes still have soot on them from crawling.
Along the way they picked up a third person. And then as
if in a movie....a light appeared in the darkness.
" And I tell you it was like Heaven sent light and
men hollered in and asked if anybody was in here and we
all hollored, yes help us. And a couple of guys got us up
and they said run to the light."
At the end of that light Mary Jo found safety.
Within hours she was off the boat she was off the boat.
Within days she was flying back home to the loving arms
of her family.
Despite what she went through Mary Jo Dean says that she
would be willing to take another cruise sometime in the
future.
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