‘I held her afloat with all my strength’: British mother saves baby from drowning on superyacht

I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others, says associate with Mike Lynch’s firm

A mother has told of how she kept her one-year-old daughter alive in the sea after Mike Lynch’s yacht sank off the coast of Sicily.
Charlotte Golunski, 38, a senior associate at Invoke, Mr Lynch’s venture capital firm, fought to prevent her child, Sofia, from drowning.
The Oxford graduate was among guests on board the Bayesian to celebrate Mr Lynch’s acquittal in an $11 billion (£8.5 billion) fraud case in June.
On Sunday at about 5am, the superyacht started to sink after being hit by a tornado.
As the screams of passengers and crew broke out all around her as they were thrown into the water, Ms Golunksi kept her grip on her baby to stop her from slipping beneath the waves.
Ms Golunksi, along with her daughter, were taken to Cristina’s paediatric hospital in Palermo.
She told La Republicca, the Italian newspaper: “I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning.
“It was all dark. In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.”
Ms Golunski told Giornale Di Sicilia: “For two seconds I lost the baby in the sea, then I immediately held her again in the fury of the waves. I held her tightly, tightly to me, while the sea was raging. So many were screaming. Fortunately, the lifeboat inflated and 11 of us managed to get on it.”
Speaking from the hospital, she said she “can still hear her little girl crying in her ears as they floated in the waves and their holiday sailing boat sank”. She said she was amazed that the child, who had just turned one, had emerged from the water unscathed.
Ms Golunski reportedly suffered “a graze on her chest that required a few stitches”. 
She reportedly phoned her husband, James Emsley, who was being treated for bruises to his limbs and chest at Civico hospital in Palermo.
According to la Republicca, as soon as she phoned her partner he asked: “How is the little girl? Is she there with you?” 
They were all due to be discharged from hospital on Monday afternoon and will be reunited at a hotel in the Sicilian capital.
Dr Domenico Cipolla, head of the emergency room at the children’s hospital, said: “She [Charlotte] told me that while they were sleeping, at a certain point the yacht overturned due to the tornado and they found themselves in the water.
“Some of them immediately managed to get on to the lifeboat. And some, evidently, didn’t make it.
“She told me that she was in the water for no more than two or three seconds, and she managed to save the baby, to keep her arms up, and then, with the others, they were able to get on the lifeboat, and then, I think, they were rescued by the coast guard.
“They are all in good condition. We managed to get the parents to talk on the phone. All the doctors and nurses were all very moved, also because the little girl is fine, the prognosis is good and we are carrying out tests just to be careful.”
The father of a lawyer who survived the sinking of Mike Lynch’s superyacht confirmed that the trip was intended as a celebration for the businessman’s recent court victory.
Lin Ronald’s daughter, Ayla Ronald, 36, a senior associate at Clifford Chance, was on board the yacht with Matthew Fletcher, her partner.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Mr Ronald said: “I have texted with my daughter and she hasn’t given me any updates about missing personnel or saved personnel. She has only said to me that there are deaths, and she and her partner are alive.
“Ayla is a lawyer who is part of the legal team that were invited to go sailing as a result of the success in the recent United States court case.
“The only other information I’ve got is that Ayla’s phone is apparently the only one that’s had a battery, and so she’s been acting in some fashion as a co-ordinator with the medics.”
Mr Ronald confirmed that the superyacht had one of the tallest aluminium masts in the world when it was launched.
“At the time that it was launched I think that was true,” he said, adding: “It is still fairly tall. It is apparently the tallest swoop mast. It was certainly a noticeable feature of the boat. It was well-known in the industry to be very, very tall.”
Mr Ronald said that the Italian boatyard which built the vessel was the Tuscany-based Perini Navi which specialises in building large yachts and confirmed that it was his understanding that Mike Lynch owned the 184ft boat.
Mr Ronald has no direct knowledge about the mast failing in the high winds, which he described as a whirlwind. He said it was his understanding that as the mast fell down it “had the effect of capsizing the actual hull of the boat”.
“I believe there was another boat that was in the vicinity that took at least some of them [the survivors], and I did see a photo of a liferaft, but I am not sure if that was used.”
Mr Ronald told The Telegraph that his daughter was a keen sailor.
“She just passed her captain’s ticket a few months ago in Greece. She’s not an active sailor, but she loves it.
“She was brought up on a yacht. I was a cruising sailor and she was almost born on a yacht in Cooktown in Australia. We just managed to get her mother off to hospital just moments before the birth.”
The family spent years sailing around South East Asia and Ms Ronald attended school in Malaysia.
Angela Bacares, 57, Mr Lynch’s wife, was among the 15 people rescued from the 56m superyacht, which she is reported to have owned.
She told doctors that her husband and 18-year-old daughter were missing, according to reports in Italian media.
La Repubblica said Ms Bacares was using a wheelchair after suffering abrasions on her feet during the sinking. She has bandages on other parts of her body.
The newspaper said that she told doctors that at 4am the boat tilted and she and her husband woke up.
At first they were not worried but then there was a scene of confusion as glass shattered.