AC

Some of the Americans who sailed aboard the ill-fated Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia are sharing tales of fear, panic, chaos and survival. Most passengers were eating dinner when the ship struck a rock along the Tuscany coast, gouging a massive hole in the hull. The announcement to abandon ship came more than an hour later. •Steve Ledtke, 58, of Fort Gratiot, Mich., remembers a horrifying "stampede, like a panic" after the announcement. •Karen Camacho, 34, of Homestead, Fla., says she and her husband, Luis Hernandez, found themselves in a hallway jammed with people pushing to get to the lifeboats "and - I'm not going to lie - we were pushing, too." •Mike Stoll, 29, of Brick, N.J., tells of gripping the deck rail of the listing ship and telling his wife, Addie King, that "God forbid something happens, we can make this swim to shore." Steve and Kathy Ledtke flew home from Italy late Monday. Just three days earlier, they were enjoying a quiet dinner aboard the Costa Concordia...