With a temperature of , the water was lethally cold. Second Officer Lightoller described the feeling of "a thousand knives" being driven into his body as he entered the sea. Sudden immersion into freezing water typically causes death within minutes, either from cardiac arrest, uncontrollable breathing of water, or cold incapacitation (not, as commonly believed, from hypothermia); almost all of those in the water died of cardiac arrest or other bodily reactions to freezing water within 15–30 minutes. Only 13 of them were helped into the lifeboats, even though these had room for almost 500 more people.