9:15am UK, Thursday January 28, 2010
Andy Jack, Sky News Online
A teenage girl has been rescued from the rubble in Haiti - 15 days after the earthquake.
Darlene Etienne, 17, was found in the rubble of a house near College St Gerard school in Port-au-Prince.
She was covered with a thermal blanket and given oxygen as rescuers rushed her on a stretcher to a French-run field hospital for treatment.
She was severely dehydrated and appeared to have a leg injury.
According to rescue workers at the scene she was happy, shocked and crying.
Darlene said simply 'thank you'
"She just said 'Thank you,' she's very weak, which suggests that she's been there for 15 days," said Commander Samuel Bernes, of the rescue team.
"She was in a pocket surrounded by concrete."
Neighbours who heard a voice coming from the rubble called authorities who brought in the search and rescue team.
Rescuer Claude Fuilla walked along the dangerously crumbled roof, heard the voice and then saw a little bit of dust-covered black hair in the rubble.
He said he cleared some debris, managed to reach the young woman and could see she was alive.
The team then dug out a hole big enough to give Etienne some oxygen and water.
She had a very weak pulse, but within 45 minutes they managed to remove her, covered in dust, from what appeared to be the collapsed porch area of the home.
Etienne's family said she had just started studying when the disaster struck, trapping scores of people in the rubble of university buildings, hostels and homes.
"We thought she was dead," her cousin, Jocelyn A St Jules, said from Marche Dessalines, a town north of the capital.
The last confirmed rescue of someone trapped by the initial quake was on Saturday, 11 days later, when a man was pulled from the ruins of a hotel store.
A man rescued on Tuesday from another store was said he had been trapped in an aftershock.
More than 100 people have been found alive since the January 12 quake, but most of those were in the immediate aftermath and authorities say it is unlikely for anyone to survive more than 72 hours without water.
(Source: news.Sky.com)
This is what I call a miracle! I truly think that they should not stop looking for people at all they might be many more calling for help or just too tired to talk.
ReplyDeleteI read in different report they says the girl is 15 and others 16 but what they all agree on is that: how in the world she survived? Well I get the answer for you this is called: miracle!!!
Now I do not know how it happens and surely would like to know about it myself! Wouldn't you?