It happened almost 43 years ago, but Michael Moscatiello, the father, still has nightmares about that terrible night  aboard  the Andrea Doria. "I still have dreams about it. I see people drowning. I see people crying and trying to save themselves...It all happened so fast." Michael, who was 15, his mother Angela, and his 21-year-old brother Luigi survived the accident that claimed 51 lives.

Michael was sound asleep aboard the Italian ship when it collided with the Swedish Liner Stockholm off Nantucket at about 11:30 p.m. on July 26, 1956. "I was in a cabin sleeping when I heard the noise," 

Michael  remembered. He awoke to find he had been thrown to the floor by the force of the crash. "My mother, she was scared. There was water coming in. We went up to the second floor, where the swimming pool was." Michael was still in his pajamas, and had no shoes on. 

"We lost everything. (But) you never think about money or anything, you try to save yourself." Somehow they were lucky enough to find Michael's older brother. Luigi, before the lower decks were sealed off. What happened after that is a blur.

"There was so much confusion. People were jumping in the water. They were drowning.'' Because the ship was listing, a rope was dropped off the high side of the sinking ship. People had to climb up it, then climb down the rope and into the lifeboats. Not everyone could do it. "I still see an old lady-- she was about 90 years old. She tried to slide down the rope. You had to raise yourself onto the top (of the ship), and then grab the big rope and throw yourself down. There was nothing else you could do. You had to try to save yourself and you had to do your best." 

The elderly woman didn't make it, he said. The Moscatiello's were waiting in line to get to the lifeboats  when Angela Moscatiello pushed her two sons into the last two seats of a lifeboat. Later, her sons learned she boarded another boat.

Michael remembers falling into the water, and some one rescuing him. Then he was unconscious for a while. When he awoke, he was on the floor of a rescue ship. Michael looked out on the water, and saw the Andrea Doria sinking into the Atlantic. But the wreck of the Andrea Doria is not the end of Michael Moscatiello's story.

A year later, his brother Luigi (picture on left) drowned in Snyders Lake in North Greenbush. It was a hot June day, and the Moscatiello boys had gone with several other youths to Snyders Lake. "We couldn't even speak English," remembered Michael. Somehow Michael fell into a deep spot in the lake.

"I went down. My brother tried to save me.  But God didn't want me... My brother raised me up, but he went down in the hole. I found myself saved, and my brother drowned." The tragedy contributed to Michael's nightmares about the Andrea Doria.

"Every year around the anniversary , I can't go near the water. I'm scared to go in the water.
It's  like  a  dream.  I  see everything with my eyes. It's something you never get over. I will never forget."

on the Andrea Doria sinking in real audio

We will have more of the complete story of the Andrea Doria  in the near future so come back.