>I've heard in situations where someone is panicking the way this woman was shown doing so in the lifeboat,
Here's a Lusitania account with another means of restoring reason contained within. Also contains something rare in Lusitania accounts, non existent in Titanic accounts, and present in about 40 General Slocum accounts; the blissful euphoria that comes over one in the final stage of drowning. (Slocum had the 'fortune' of grounding next to a hospital. So, many who technically drowned were revived to describe this phenomenon)
"A boat was being launched, and one end dropped letting all the people it contained into the sea. At the sight, I felt faint and asked Mr. Naish to pinch me to help me back to consciousness. He did, and I was alright again in a moment. We made no effort to get into the lifeboats. Mr. Naish had promised me long before he would never force me to get into a lifeboat unless there was room for him.
"Now, I saw the water coming closer. A boatman came up and said “She’s steady. She’ll float for an hour.” But I knew she wasn’t steady, and wouldn’t float for an hour. “Look,” I said, “at the horizon and the railing of this boat. We’ll be gone in a minute.” And gone we were. The Irish coast looked far away, and the song “It’s a Long Long Way to Tipperary” kept glancing through my mind.
"We took hold of the railing that penned in the lifeboats. I had my arm through my husband’s. But, as I felt the boat sinking I unclasped my hand from his, because I did not want to drag him down. At that moment the ship dipped down and over at the same time, bringing the water up to my armpits. A boat swung out and struck my head and cut it open, and I lifted my arm to keep it from striking my husband in the face. It seemed as if everything in the universe ripped and tore. The deck seemed to strike the soles of my feet hard.
"The next thing I knew, I was twenty or thirty feet below the surface of the sea. I thought “Why, this is like being on grandmother’s feather bed.” I was comfortable. My head struck something that cut my scalp, and kept bumping. I got my arms around something, and when I came out of the water I was clasping the bumper of an overturned lifeboat."