Hamilton County Judge Rescued From Cruise Ship Shares His Story

[Jason]

Hamilton County Judge Rescued From Cruise Ship Shares His Story

Source: Matt Johnson, 3 Eyewitness News

A Hamilton County judge is back from a rocky vacation. Judge Ron Durby was rescued from the "Sea Diamond" cruise ship when it sank off the coast of Greece.

April 6th, Durby, his wife, and friends were aboard the Greek cruise ship when their vacation took an unexpected turn. They lost nearly everything when the 500-foot vessel went down.

Durby and friends survived and the judge is happy to be back on dry land to tell his story.

"We left eighteen days ago and not knowing that we were going to have the adventure we had," Durby said.

Inflatable fish welcome Judge Durby back to dry land as he shares his ocean adventure. "It wasn't a panic situation, it was the unknown factors that bothered us, we didn't know exactly what was happening," he explained.

Durby was one of 1,200 passengers aboard the "Sea Diamond" cruise ship when it hit a reef off the island coast of Santorini, Greece.

"I felt this lunge in the boat and then this grinding sound which was the hull being ripped open by the rock," he said. Thanks to early warning signs, Durby and his friends made it ashore safely. "The horns went off, some left and went to the started moving to the upper levels," Durby added.

He compares the dramatic three hour rescue to the events of the "Titanic." "We were about at a twenty-five to thirty degree list, all the dishes and glasses started falling out of the shelves," he said.

Now, safe and sound, Durby looks back with a laugh. "I found out my wife could live with a lot less clothes than what she carried on that trip since everything went down in the ship," he said.

Durby says after the ship sank, the group stayed the night in Santorini, then took a ferry to Athens, Greece and went about the rest of the trip as normal. Two french passengers are still missing and presumed drown. A ship captain and five officers have been charged with negligence.