Mom relieved seeing son after shipwreck

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The captain of the cruise ship that went down off the coast of Italy Friday is being blamed for bad judgment.

So far, six people are confirmed dead, and another 16 are still missing.

Videos recorded by passengers on board the sinking cruise ship are starting to surface.

You can hear the panic as people scramble to find life boats. Two of them -- Steve Garcia and Blake Miller -- are from Austin.

"We heard the horrible scraping sound and we decided to run out for the life boats," Garcia said during an interview on the Today Show. "Fortunately, we had read where the life boats were because we weren't sure. Some of the crew was going up, others were running down."

Garcia is an eighth grade English teacher at Deerpark Middle School in Round Rock, and Miller is the business travel director at the InterContinental Stephen F. Austin hotel in downtown Austin.

It was the couple's first cruise. The seven-day trip was supposed to be a celebration of Garcia's 50th Birthday.

"I honestly did not have a true understanding of how bad it was until we were on the life boat and looked back and saw the first row of windows underwater and people screaming that couldn't get on a life boat," said Miller.

Steve's mother, Chris Garcia, watched her son tell his story on NBC's Today Show from her home in San Antonio.

"Our hearts have been in our throats, my husband and I have just been holding on," Chris Garcia told an NBC reporter in San Antonio. "Just seeing him was the best thing for us, just seeing his face there, we know he's in one piece."

The cruise ship company, Costa Concordia, owned by Carnival says there may have been "significant human error" on the part of Captain Francesco Schettino.

Investigators say the ship deviated from the route and was far too close to shore. Crew members have said the captain planned to get closer to salute people on the island.

Schettino was arrested for questioning, under suspicion of manslaughter, and abandoning ship before everyone on board evacuated.

But he says, his navigation systems showed the way was clear.

Rescuers continue searching for the missing, while survivors thank those who stepped in to help them.

"The people of Giglio were really beyond compare -- really what I would expect from my own hometown of Austin, Texas," said Miller.