the will to survive. something the families of these two missing boys are sure they have too. cnn, jupiter, florida. and a lot of experience on the water as well. joining me, the cargo ship captain. captain, the coast guard officials say people can survive in these waters this time of year for about four or five days. do you think that is still possible? reporter: absolutely. we still want to be optimistic that these 14-year-olds are still alive today. absolutely they can probably stay four or five days. so long as they have some time of flotation device that will help them stay afloat. that s critical. even in 80-degree water, you can still get hypothermia over time. absolutely. we re looking, every day they re losing their body heat. they re using a lot of their body heat. if they know any survival tactics like to get into a fetal position or huddling together,
reporter: but not everyone has had the benefit of a boat. in january, former miami dolphin football player rob conrad was fishing off southern california when a wave knocked him into the oceaner he was left without a lifejacket. the boat sailed off leaving him behind. he knew the only way he would survive was by swimming nine miles to shore. look, i ve got two beautiful daughters. i was getting to shore. reporter: over the next 16 hours he pushed off. and then he said he heard waves crashing on the beach. i could see the lights getting closer and closer. and at that point, you can t not make it, right? reporter: how they got into trouble varies from story to story. the one thing they all had was the will to survive. something the families of these two missing boys are sure they have too. cnn, jupiter, florida. and a lot of experience on the water as well. joining me, the cargo ship captain. captain, the coast guard officials say people can survive
making it difficult to enter this room. it was important for the divers to reach this room because of the fact a large number of students were believed to be there when this disaster happened. still no word yet about what they re finding in the cafeteria. but with so many students trapped inside, a lot of people here are very fearful of what the news will be as we learned in the coming hours. will ripley, thanks for the update. great reporting for will. i also want to bring in cargo ship captain jim staples and also kade courtly, founder of s.e.a.l. survival. captain, i d like to begin with you. when you hear that kind of news, that the divers have been able to get midship and to that essential cafeteria area, does that bring anything to light for you in terms of the area that they are, the danger for those doing the diving? absolutely, it s very dangerous down there it it s unreasonable to have anybody go to a main place like that in a ship when the ship is in trouble. now we hear
adopted after the titanic sank. it doesn t require a can t be stay on board but it does say the captain is responsible for the vesselpassengers. that same treaty also says passengers should be allowed to evacuate within 30 minutes. remember, the sewol ferry took more than two hours to sink off south korea. but the passengers were told to stay in place. a warning that may prove to have caused hundreds of lives. randi kaye, cnn, new york. i want to bring back cargo ship captain jim staples, a marine safety consultant. there s another reason why the old legend has it the captain should go down with the ship. perhaps not down but stay with the ship until last possible moment. why is that? that s because of salvage rights. the captain is the owner s representative on that vessel. after his first obligation of getting all the crew and passengers off, the second