Rigel The Dog Saved Survivors
(Image not actual Rigel)
William McMaster Murdoch, the First Officer helm in-charge of the Titanic, was known as a loyal and impractical officer during the evacuation of passengers; unfortunately he went down with the vessel or committed suicide based on testimonies by eyewitnesses.
Not known to all but Murdoch had a large-sized black Newfoundland dog named ‘Rigel’ with a glossy black coat from the tip to the toe and extreme loyalty is known by people for Newfoundland breed but Murdoch doesn’t agree towards this point as it seems it doesn’t had any loyalty exist in it.
During the final hours of Titanic, Rigel went down with the vessel but eventually managed to surface and was seen swimming away and kept close to one of the lifeboats. Efforts have been made by the exhausted sailors and lifeboat passengers to pull Rigel from the freezing water of Atlantic but failed as Rigel was too much of a large size to be pulled by hand.
Four hours later, RMS Carpathia finally arrives, passengers on boat were too exhausted to call out for attention and lifeboats were risked of sucking down to the ocean by the bows of Carpathia. At the very last moment, Rigel’s barking alerted the crew and Captain Arthur Rostron gave orders to immediately stop the engines before pulling the lifeboats any further. The rescue-crew eventually managed to have a canvas sling under its belly, with that attached; he was pulled aboard.
After the incident, Rigel was adopted by John Brown, Carpathia’s Master at Arms and Rigel lived to an old age in John Brown’s bucolic setting home in Scotland.
Till the very date today, people doubted the story of Rigel, due to the tremendous amount of passengers murdered by hypothermia and it’s still unknown how Rigel survived it being submerged in the Atlantic for over 4 hours.