Flashes in the Night

Book excerpt: Flashes in the Night captures the tragic story of the sinking of M/S Estonia in dark, cold Baltic waters on September 28, 1994. Caught in a storm during an overnight trip between Tallinn, Estonia, and Stockholm, Sweden, the ship sank in a matter of minutes. Debate continues over whether the cause was structural or sabotage, but the fact remains 852 souls were lost at sea in Europe's worst civilian disaster. Nearly one-third of those who escaped the ship died of hypothermia. A twenty-nine-year-old Swedish entrepreneur and a pretty nineteen-year-old Swedish girl are a major focus of this dramatic account. On that night when Kent Harstedt met Sara Hedrenius on the top rail of the sinking ship, they made a date for dinner in Stockholm-if they survived. Through that endless darkness, huddled in near-freezing water in their raft, they told each other jokes to stay awake and alive. Their date made world headlines. This is their story, and the story of the young British adventurer Paul Barney, along with riveting accounts of others who were a part of this harrowing life-or-death survival epic.