As Doaa fought off nightmares, the crew were desperately trying to save the little girls. One crew member spoke on the radio to a doctor from the Maltese coast guard who was giving him guidance. Since there was no medic on board, the crew had resorted to their minimal first-aid training. The crew member told the doctor that both children looked bad—they remained unconscious, their breathing was shallow, and their body temperatures were dangerously low. Doaa was also in bad shape; she was weak and could only speak slowly and unintelligibly. But the little girls seemed on the brink of death. The doctor advised the crewman to offer only small sips of warm water and to wrap the babies in blankets with hot-water bottles inside. The girls were probably suffering from hypothermia, and their bodies needed to warm up slowly. A watchman was assigned to monitor their breathing and to keep taking their temperature.
Five hours after she was pulled from the water, Doaa could hear the noise of a helicopter overhead. Stirring from sleep, she found crew members rushing into her room, gesturing to her that it was time to leave. She attempted to stand, but her legs buckled under her weight and she dropped back down on the bed. Six men surrounded the cot and lifted it up with her in it, carrying Doaa to the top deck. There the helicopter hovered above, dangling a collapsible rescue basket that slowly dropped to the deck. The bottom of the basket was a square metal-and-rope frame attached to a cable by a web of thick ropes with rubber buffers. When pulled taut, the ropes formed a strong, pyramid-like cage. The wind whipped through Doaa’s hair and she felt a chill as a man wearing a vest and a helmet picked her up and folded her into the basket. She was so weak, she couldn’t sit up. The man knelt next to her at the opening, holding on to the ropes and smiling at her reassuringly as they rose to the hovering helicopter. Feeling safe cocooned in the basket, she looked down at the black, choppy water. She thought, I can never hate the sea again because Bassem is a part of it now. She recalled some of his last words: “If I die, all I want is for you to be happy.”
A pair of strong arms reached down from the belly of the helicopter to pull her into the cabin. Doaa was surprised to discover that other survivors were already inside. The first one she saw was Mohammad—the man who had swum toward the first rescue boat with the African man trailing him earlier that day, promising to return for her but never coming back. That boat hadn’t been an illusion after all. “You’re here,” he said without emotion when he saw her. Doaa averted her eyes. She had nothing to say to the person who had not come back to save her. Then she noticed Shoukri, the devastated Palestinian who’d lost his wife and two small children just after the boat had sunk. He was sitting in silence and staring through the window out to the sea. She recognized two other men but couldn’t recall their names. And nestled in the arms of one of the helicopter crew was little Masa, wrapped tightly in a white fleece blanket. Her tiny bare feet were sticking out at the end, flopping to the side. She wasn’t moving at all. Please, please, let her be alive, Doaa prayed. She frantically scanned the benches for Malak but couldn’t find her. Maybe she was about to be pulled up next from the ship, Doaa thought. But then the door closed and the helicopter lurched forward. No other survivors were brought on board. Doaa caught the attention of one of the helicopter’s crew. “Malak?!” she cried desperately. “The baby?!”
But it was too loud in the helicopter and she couldn’t quite make out the man’s response, and even if she could, he was speaking English. She asked again, and this time one of the other survivors translated for her. Little Malak had died, he relayed to Doaa. The crew did everything they could to resuscitate her, but she was gone. Doaa’s breath caught in her throat as she heard this news and she began to sob. She felt as if her heart were being torn out of the exact spot on her chest where Malak had nestled her head. Doaa couldn’t stand the unfairness of it. Malak had survived four days in the water only to die after being rescued. Doaa would rather she had died and Malak had lived. Racked with grief, Doaa wondered whether the baby would have survived if only Doaa had insisted on keeping her safe in her arms as Doaa sang songs and recited verses from the Quran, just as she had done in the water. A doctor approached Doaa looking concerned and feeling for her pulse. Then he turned abruptly away and quickly made his way over to Masa, laying her flat on her back and starting CPR, the heel of his hand pressing down on her chest. Doaa held her breath. She couldn’t bear to lose Masa, too. After a few tense moments, the doctor stopped the chest compressions and sat back with a relieved smile. Masa was breathing again, and a faint hope flickered in Doaa’s heart.