Tsunami survivor...part one (continued in thread)

[pearlygates]

Sitting around, day after Christmas, just staring at the TV
� some movie we�ve seen before. Mid-morning, post-breakfast stupor
controlling Karin and me. The power flickers and we moan. We�ll have to
get up and do something? Then we hear some yelling outside.
I look out the front door, still puffed up with pride about our new house,
just 400 feet back from the beach. People are running up our street yelling.
It looks like a fire at the large two story resort that effectively blocks
our view of the beach. Smoke and dust coming up and all these people.
Then a small line of really brown water comes rolling towards us. That�s
weird. But I reckon it must be some strange full moon high tide. So we go
upstairs so we don�t get wet.
I look out the window and try and take some pictures. There is a quiet
rumble to it, like those white noise generators that are supposed to help
you sleep. The water is getting higher and higher and then it destroys our
friends cement bungalow! Then our front door caves in, and then water is
coming up the stairs! HOLY ****. This was the last point my brain worked
for a long time.
We try and throw a mattress out the window to float on, but the water is
rising too fast, and out the window we climb. It�s all going so fast.
It�s faster than conscious thought and by the time we are on our second
story roof, the water is coming out the window. We jump.
Karin doesn�t jump at the same time or did I jump too early? We�re
separated. I scream her name, but the crashing roiling water mutes me. I
can�t hear her. I scream and scream until I get hit by something and
pulled under. I can�t swim to the top, I pull myself through trash and
wood to the surface and off I go.
Ahead are trees wrapped in flotsam and as I look a Thai guy is struggling
to get free of it, as I pass by at 30 MPH I realize he is impaled on a piece
of wood and can�t even scream.
My brain shut down when Karin disappeared, and now all I can do is survive.
Something triggers and I swim. I swim to avoid the trees which will trap me,
possibly kill me. It seems that I am atop the crest of the tsunami, which is
less like a wave than a flood.
From on high I can see the water hit buildings, then rise, then watch the
buildings collapse into piles of concrete and rebar. I swim to avoid these.
Left and right I paddle, looking ahead the whole time trying to figure the
hazards. None of this is conscious, this isn�t me thinking it out, it�s
some recessed part of the brain coming out and taking control.
I was busy seeing the weird things, like massive diesel trucks being rolled
end over end. Or the car launched through the 2nd storey wall of a former
luggage shop. Or the person high up in a standing tree in a lurid orange
thong. Or the older foreigner that got stuck in the wood and steel wrapped
around a tree, and then his body torn off while his head remained. I
couldn�t scream.
I was pulled under, my pants caught on something, I decided that this was
neither the place nor time for me to die, and ripped my pants off. I
surfaced into a hunk of wood which cut my forehead.
A 5 gallon water bottle sped by, and I wrapped myself around it like a
horny German Shepard on a Chihuahua. I was passing people with bleeding
faces and caked in refuse. Some people reached out to me, and I back, but
the water was too fast and erratic. Some people screamed for help and I told
them to swim. Some people just stared with empty eyes, watching what
happened, but seeing nothing. Some were just floating bodies.
At some point, I passed a guy, cut on his cheek, holding onto big piece of
foam. We just made eye contact and shrugged apathetically at each other.
Then I turned ahead to watch fate. When I looked back he was gone.
Trees were pulled down, and their flotsam added to the flow. I was hit by a
refrigerator and pushed towards a building that was collapsing. I swam and
swam and swam and swam and still was pushed right towards a huge clump of
jagged sticks and metal. I was pulled under, kicked towards the mass, cut my
feet and kicked again. I popped up on the other side, spun around and pulled
under again.
Down there, I knew it was not the time, and I pulled my way up through the
floating rubbish of my former town. I pulled and pulled and my lungs ached
for air. I flashed on Star Wars, the trash compactor scene, and had some big
grin in the back of head as I popped up. Sucking ****ty water and air deep
in my lungs.
This went on for weeks. Time simply left the area alone. I grabbed the edge
of a mattress and floated. Breathing, just breathing. Awareness brought back
by the sound and look of a water fall. Trying to push up onto the mattress
more and more, and it took my weight less and less. Tumbling over the edge,
sucked under again, and out I shot, swirled into a coconut grove, where the
water seemed to have stopped. There was even a dyke like wall around the
grove.
The water spun and churned, but went no where, and got no higher. It
wasn�t swimming, or climbing, but something in between. I made my way to
the land. Every step had to be careful with broken glass everywhere, and
sheet metal poking out. It was a long slow struggle.
The low rumble had stopped, and now is the occasional creak of wood on wood
and metal scraping. Moans came across the new brown lake. A small boy was in
a tree crying, asking for his parents in Norwegian.
I climbed up onto the dyke and looked around. I screamed out for Karin,
only getting responses in Thai. I stood there, panting, trying to find a
thought, anything. As I came back to earth I needed to pee. The first thing
I did after surviving the tsunami was piss! Along limps an older Thai guy,
finds me, naked atop a dyke amid the destruction, covered in mud and filth
� pissing. He didn�t even smile�nor did I.
I spent the next minutes running from high point to high point screaming
out for Karin. If I made it, she could too. There was no response from her.
I found plenty of other people, and helped who I could, but always looking
across this vast area of new lakes for her head.
Through the trees was a PT boat, a large steel police cruiser. The boat and
I had been brought more than a kilometer (2/3 mile) inland.
I was standing near a tree, hoping for a clue, anything to say she was out
there somewhere. A small boy in a tree whimpered, and I pulled him down. We
went inland. There were houses, still standing, a whole neighborhood atop a
rise that was untouched. Just feet away were cars wrapped around trees. I
handed them the boy.
I had finished my medic training exactly one month before, so I went to
work. Pulling people out of mud, from under houses. One car, upright against
the trunk of a tree still had the driver. He was dead. It went on. Before
this I had only seen a dead body once or twice. That was remedied very
quickly. I pulled people out of the water, only to have them choke and die
right there. I would take someone�s pulse, scream for help, then find that
they had died before we could do anything. It was beyond any nightmare or
fear I have ever had.

 

[pearlygates]

An older Thai woman came up to me with a pair of shorts and averted eyes.
She was ashamed that I was totally naked. I smirked and slipped them on. She
smiled and scurried away.
Roaming the former streets looking for foreigners to send to the higher
ground, a place where we could all meet and tend to wounds. After an hour
the Thais came screaming out of the mud saying there was another wave coming
, and flying into the hills. We were left alone. Those that could walk did,
the rest were carried. We made a new base, higher and safer. And the same
thing happened again. And again.
Eventually we ended up in the jungle at a park, where there was water and
high ground. It was messy. Eventually there were about 300 foreigners, about
120 of whom were injured pretty severely with broken limbs and ribs,
near-drownings, everyone had gashes of some kind, severed fingers or toes
and shock everywhere.
There was no medicine, no tools, no scissors, no bandages. Nothing but well
water (of questionable cleanliness) and some sticks and clothes. I tried to
find anyone medically trained. It was only the diving instructors who all
had basic first aid. So we cleaned with the water, we broke sticks and set
bones and talked people into a relatively calm place. If someone was
severely cut, we used their own clothing to mend the wounds. It was a horror
story. The floor was covered in blood, people were moaning, or vomiting or
asking us to help them. And more arrived with every new wave of cars and
trucks fleeing the �next wave�.
After hours of this, we got news of helicopters evacuating the injured. So
everyone rushed towards the trucks. I had to scream and push and pull people
out of the way. The ones who needed the evac the most were the ones who
couldn�t get to the trucks. After twenty minutes of sorting through the
priorities, and feeling like we had a handle on it, someone brought me to a
girl who was bleeding severely out of her thigh and was in shock. No one had
brought her to our little clinic area, they had left her in the back of
truck.
Finally, after a few helicopters had pulled out the worst, I headed back
down.
Through rubber tree plantations, and coconut groves we drove. It seemed
quiet and relaxed. At the last corner it was devastation. The road was clear
and dry up to a certain point and then it was a horizon of rubble. I
shuddered.
Someone on a scooter came up and asked for a doctor. Everyone looked at me!
I jumped on and they took me up roads I never knew existed, and over bridges
that were barely standing until I was brought to five foreigners in the
middle of nowhere. One of them was a good friend and diving instructor. It
was the first person I had seen that I knew. It was a total joy. He was
banged up pretty bad, but he got out and sent off to the hospital. Then the
Thais came roaring up the hill, saying there was another wave. We had to
carry four more people with broken bones (including a broken hip) up a hill.
There was no wave. There never was.
I stumbled back down, wandering through the town looking for people to
help. I found only bodies. I found one with a tattoo like Karin�s on a
scooter under some rubble. I pulled her out, and it was a Thai woman. Still
griping her scooter, mouth agape.
Eventually I made my way back to the dive shop I worked at. We had always
whinged about how it was too far off the main road, but it survived. It was
a center for the survivors. I walked up to find friends alive and things
clean and organized.
I had been able to keep on, doing what I could to help people, to close out
my mind to what was around me and look only at what I was doing, to not see
the dead people, to not worry about where Karin was. I had held together so
well.
When I found out Karin was alive it all fell apart. I could smell the
destruction, the horror I had just walked through, just lived through, that
she had lived through. My body shouted out all the bruises and cuts I had
ignored. It all struck me and threw me to the ground. It was too much � I
could no longer accept this.
We hugged and ate and slept. My feet were cut up, I had small cuts all over
my body, and a sinus infection from all the bad water.
Karin had gotten hold of a coconut tree, wrapped herself around it and
never let go. She had a few bruises and small cuts and a black eye. I was
ecstatic to see her like that. First time I�ve been happy to see a woman
with a black eye.
Most of the rest of our friends had come through. They had set up first aid
stations and help stations, organized food and created a center for people
to meet. The diving community came together and became our support, our
medical care, our food - they did everything they could to help and then
some.
I can�t help but give massive appreciation and even a bit of awe to
several people. Whether you know them or not, these are the true heroes.
Keith � he was tireless - for days, running around, getting medicine,
doing first aid, cooking food, getting clothes, talking to the forlorn,
coordinating doing everything he could. His energy was endless and bright.
Jim and Andrea opened the doors of their shop, and clothed and housed
everyone they could. Joakim ran about grabbing people, helping wherever he
could, evacuating people to the next town, the whole while wondering about
the safety of his own family. And the two DMT�s that helped me out � two
guys who had just taken a first aid class and then had to deal with massive
trauma, death and chaos. And all the others � this was not the work of
just one or two people.
Of course the diving community at large shined like a beacon over the
madness. When there was no one else, they all stepped forward. I can�t
help but swell with pride to count myself among them.

The next day I went back to where my house had been and surveyed the
damage. One bungalow nearby had been lifted up and dropped on top of
another. The whole beach was visible, meaning all of the two or three story
hotels that had lined it were gone. There was a jet ski just near our house.
The bottom floor of our house was gone, the upper floor was missing a couple
of walls. The only thing left, was a plastic Jesus doll I had bought as a
joke.
So I was left with nothing in the world except my own plastic Jesus.
The level of destruction is virtually impossible to describe. On our beach
we had approx. 2500 hotel rooms. It looked to me, that maybe 50 could still
be called hotel rooms. The week between Christmas and New Year�s is the
busiest of the week. Without warning, without an evacuation plan the
survival rates were minimal. The wave at our house was about 7 meters high
(20 feet) and in some places it was 10 meters (30 feet) high. It wiped out
the third floor of most resorts. The number of dead is astronomical, several
thousand on my beach alone. By the second day you could smell it, and in the
short walk to my former house, we passed about 10 bodies just strewn about.
Our final glance of the town was a cattle truck stacked full of wrapped up
corpses. We wanted to go home.

In Bangkok most people got help pretty quick. The Swedes, Germans and
English had charted flights for their citizens to get home. The Thai
government gave free hotel rooms to survivors and there were lists of places
to get food.

EXCEPT the Americans. I went in to find out what help I could get � I was
able to get a replacement passport, a toothbrush and a paperback book. They
said it was not their policy to arrange flights home. I was cut up, still
covered in a pretty good layer of mud, I had no home, no money, no clothing
(except some borrowed off Keith) nothing at all, and they could do nothing
to help.
They did offer to let me borrow money, but they would have to find three
people in America who would vouch for me, and that process should take less
than a week. In the mean time I was ****ed. I was destitute and rejected by
the embassy. Karin was with me (she�s Swedish) and said that I could still
try and emigrate to Sweden. I was VERY tempted.
In these last days, watching politicians go on about helping and giving
aide, but they won�t even take care of their own citizens? I am very, very
angry. All the other nations of the world were taking care of their own
citizens! Eventually I got a flight home with JAL � that would be JAPAN
airlines � not even an American company, but a JAPANESE company helped me
get home.
I am still listed as neither found nor alive. Before I left I had spoken to
the embassy twice on the phone, giving my name so I would be listed as alive
so my family would not worry. I went to the embassy twice, once to get a
passport to replace the one lost in the tsunami, and they never listed me as
alive or found. I flew out of the country using said passport and am still
not found. I went to the hospital three times, and, as of yesterday I am now
listed as injured (having been in the states three days already). My family
is now waiting to see how long it will take before they are notified about
my status. So am I.
It does raise a good question � if I am missing or dead, do I have to pay
taxes?

While spiteful about the embassy, I am grateful to be alive, and that those
I care about are still alive. I still look around and am in awe at what just
happened. I really feel like someone has slipped me some roofies and I woke
up in America.

No real moral to this story�yet.



Real help for divers? www.diveaid.co.uk

 

[drbill]

Wow... seems like quite an indictment of our country's assistance to citizens traveling abroad. Not a total surprise in this era of "survival of the fittest" (especially those made fittest by government subsidies, tax breaks, etc.). The great thing is the way the American people (always a notch above the governments they elect) are contributing to the relief effort on their own.

Dr. Bill

 

[Jonathan]

Also not the first thread to mention that the US were not helping their citizens in affected areas...

 

[DennisW]

Sounds like the State Department is disfunctional. This is a sad state of affairs. You would think that someone in authority would just make this situation right. But I'll bet, most of them are trying to cover their backsides instead of doing their jobs.

 

[justleesa]

pearlygates....

out of the blue, everything gone....how horrible. I'm glad that you both made it alive and hope that you and Karin will be able to deal with what has happend. All the best in the world for both of you.

and yes, you too are a hero!

Aloha,
Lisa

 

[fbosch]

Sounds like the same treatment the government gives our soldiers, what is with this crap, unbelievable! I support our troops but the troops aren't being supported!

You are amazing for being there for people when you weren't sure about your wife,
I am not sure I could have done the same.

Bravo!

 

[hvulin]

Come on people calm down, leave the politics out of it... Politics is the last thing people out there need...

You'll have your elections in a couple of years so hold your thoughts untill then...

Thank good at least some people survived this kind of disaster....