I solved the century-old mystery of a shipwreck survivor

Tldr: 'Davidson stripped off his nightshirt and swam away from the ship. The suction took him down, and when he came up, he swam into a frenzied crowd. “They tramped me under three times before I got through them. I swam on a little farther, but the water was fearfully cold, and I was out of practice swimming,” he said.

Davidson was picked up by a lifeboat and taken to the _Storstad_, which survived the collision.'

The article was apparently edited to increase prolixity.

I thought the background was interesting and helpful to know

It’s a book excerpt

I thought he would explain how he figured all this out but it was not clear from the article how he did so.

Thank you for teaching me a new word.

Prolixity - unnecessarily or tediously wordy

I wondered about this suction. Is he talking about the ship sinking as suction. Mythbusters demonstrated IIRC that this "suction" doesn't happen.

I prefer the almost comical sounding word, logorrhea.