SOME of the luckiest people in the world - lucky to be alive - were telling their stories at hospitals in the Indian Ocean islands of Comoros and Reunion yesterday.
The US consul general in Bombay, Mr Franklin Huddle, and his wife, were two of the 52 survivors of the hijacked Ethiopian Airlines crash.
"I thought I was dead when we hit the water," Mr Huddle said, describing how he and his wife managed to swim free of the wreckage and headed for the nearest windsurfer, which they clung to until they were taken to shore.
Mr Huddle said the three hijackers "where not high tech hijackers - threatening types in the Middle East style. They let you get up to pee. But they were terrorists and they did not let the pilot communicate with us".
An Israeli passenger thrown into the sea during the crash said he managed to rescue a woman and her baby.
"We simply went into an emergency landing in the sea and I felt a powerful shaking. I was thrown from the seat, and water penetrated the plane, and somehow I managed to get out. I don't know how," Mr Lior Fox (23), told Israel Radio.
"I saw a woman with a baby who was caught and I swam towards her and freed them from the wreckage and inflated the life preserver for her, and for the baby I inflated the life preserver, and we got up together on a boat," Mr Fox said.
Two British women, Ms Katherine Hayes and Ms Elizabeth Anders, told yesterday of their "miracle" escape. They suffered only slight injuries when the Boeing 767 dived into the sea and broke up in the middle.
Ms Hayes (30) faxed news of her safety to her family in London, saying: "I was able to undo my seat belt and swam up to the surface."