I would think if she was strapped onto the stretcher securely, that she would have drowned and that not being strapped to it gave her a chance?
It just seems like it took way too long for them to rescue her.
Good pics at the MSNBC site. The poor lady is lucky she survived the drop and was not pulled through the props of one of the vessels as the rescuers cling to the lifelines. They were definitely steaming too fast, look at the wake in the pic....I see a long trail of Law-lie-yers in the near future for all involved.
In water at 26.6 degrees, it might take longer than that to convince me to go in after her.