How Do You Cure a Broken Heart?

"I wonder," he remembers thinking, "if I'll ever see anything like that."

The boat seems far away. The storm has blown the wreckage of the Lady D several yards from where Karen surfaces, gasping.

Karen is cold. She will say later that she has never been so cold in her life. Swimming through the rough chop seems impossible. She doesn't know how long she can survive treading here in the frigid water. She has no choice. She clutches the life vest in front of her and kicks furiously toward the overturned pontoon boat.

Karen spots her husband, Denny, clinging to a rope off the side of the wreckage. Denny sees Karen, too, and calls to her, urging her on.

Dazed survivors have climbed on top of the overturned vessel, and are hauling others up behind them, Karen and Denny recall later.

George Bentrem, a 39-year-old doctor from Harrisonburg, Va., surfaces but doesn't see his wife or young children. He goes back under the boat.

Edward Roccella is on top of the capsized boat yelling frantically for Andrew and Corinne. "Where are the kids?" he shouts to Denny, who is still in the water. "I can't see the kids! Where are the kids?" Denny slips below the surface to look for them. The water is so dark it's like trying to see through black coffee.

Nearby, the doctor from Harrisonburg is also frantic. He's found his wife and 7-year-old daughter, but not his other two children, Sarah, 8, and Daniel, 6.

Karen is so exhausted by the time she reaches the Lady D, she doesn't have the strength to pull herself out of the water. Denny helps lift her onto the barnacled wreckage. Some fellow survivors are too stunned to move or speak. Andrew's mother has shattered her shoulder and writhes in pain. Denny stays in the frigid water, searching. Shivering on the upturned hull, Karen surveys the chaos and wonders if anyone knows they are out here and need help.

"Andrew is a strong swimmer," his father, Edward, says hopefully. Andrew, who makes friends easily and is applying to graduate school in conflict management. Andrew, who drives a convertible, owns his own condo and is already too wise to carry credit card debt. Andrew: his only child.

More than 10 minutes after the Lady D capsized, according to rescuers, survivors and news accounts, survivors hear the rough chug of a diesel engine and see a 70-foot Navy landing craft approach, its ramp lowered. It looks like the kind of vessel used to land troops on D-Day. On board are several reservists who had just finished training exercises at the nearby Naval Reserve Center when officers standing in an open doorway watched the water taxi capsize and raised the alarm.

As the landing craft maneuvers to pull alongside the stranded pontoon boat without smashing into it, reservists scan stricken faces.