Cruise Dancer Saved After Updating Facebook Status

You never know when an updated Facebook status might come in handy. A dancer stranded on the foundered Italian cruise ship typed out on her FB page: “My name is Rose, and I’m one of the last survivors still on board the sinking cruise ship off the coast of Italy. Pray for us to be rescued." Rose Metcalf, 22, was saved a few hours later, plucked off a nearly-perpendicular deck by a rescuer dangling from a helicopter, reports the New York Daily News. The official death toll is now at six, with several passengers still unaccounted for.

Some passengers spent what they feared might be their last moments on earth texting or calling loved ones. Seamus and Carol Moore of Ireland clung to the railing of the listing deck and watched lifeboats go without them. Seamus phoned a chum who was watching the couple's three children. "I told my friend that my will was with my solicitor, and to make sure that my kids were looked after,” he told the Daily Mail. "We told him to tell the kids that we loved them, but asked him not to tell our daughter, Claire, what was going on unless the worst happened—because she had an exam to sit the following morning.” (More Costa Concordia stories.)