SURVIVOR: Aaron le Boutillier
Aaron le Boutillier is a tsunami survivor. He was on the Thai island of Koh Phi Phi where had been working for many years. He has published a book about his experiences on the morning of December 26. “And Then One Morning” is his account of the day that changed the lives of many around the world.
For anyone caught up in the tsunami, however, it was all over in a matter of minutes. They were either alive or dead. Over a quarter of a million people lost their lives while millions who survived had to deal with the tragedy in countless ways.
And Then One Morning encapsulates the expat life on a small tropical island and introduces the reader to the main characters who either survived or perished in the tsunami. Chief amongst these is the Oswald family. Heinz Oswald spent eighteen years developing a successful dive business on Phi Phi. Aaron visited Phi Phi that Christmas to help Heinz and his family move to Phuket on the afternoon of December 26. That move never happened.Hours after the tsunami, Aaron found Heinz’s wife and four year old son alive. There is relief and surprise as other characters are found alive. But for the next two weeks there is the trauma of the search for Heinz and his two daughters.
And Then One Morning captures Aaron’s growth from a care-free twenty-two year old into a successful business owner in Singapore by the time of the tsunami. Following the tsunami he took responsibility to help the survivors of the Oswald family as well as other friends from the island.
Four years on there are still people suffering from the tsunami in a multitude of ways. Aaron has decided that the author royalties from the sale of his book should go to helping some of those still traumatised by the disaster. For each book sold, Aaron gets 12% of the sale price, and turns around and donates it back to charities in Thailand to continue to help.
The first donation of monies from Big Wave Publications was on the 24th October 2008 where with the help of all that attended and the Phuket Lions club we raised 30,000 Baht for the Sadtree Orphanage. The second donation will also be for 30,000 Baht to the Nilubon school in December. The monies will be generated from the Singapore book launch which has kindly been sponsored by the Grand Hyatt Singapore and their F.O.R.C.E program.
Learn more about Aaron here:
http://www.bigwavepublications.com/index.html
I encourage you to purchase the book. To give you a taste of the writing – you can read the chapters of his story here on the survivors site:
Chapter 16 - A Washing Machine Springs a Leak (what happened in those initial minutes when the first wave hit).
Chapter 17 - Rumbles down below (in a brief second – how do you process what is happening to you?)
Chapter 18 - Hey Ma, I’m on top of the World (Saving people!)
Chapter 19 – On the Edge of the Ring of Fire (How could this happen?)
Chapter 20 – Phi Phi Hotel Becomes Sanctuary
Read more survivor stories at: TSUNAMI SURVIVOR SITE
Labels: Aaron le Boutillier Tsunami Survivor
CHAPTER 16: A Washing Machine Springs a Leak
A Washing Machine Springs a Leak
This is an excerpt from Tsunami survivor Aaron Le Boutillier in his book “And Then One Morning.” For anyone caught up in the tsunami, however, it was all over in a matter of minutes. They were either alive or dead. Over a quarter of a million people lost their lives while millions who survived had to deal with the tragedy in countless ways. Aaron continues to live and work in Southeast Asia. The proceeds of his book continue to make a difference in Thailand. Read more about Aaron and his book here:
Aaron Le Boutillier
http://phukettsunami.blogspot.com/2009/04/survivor-aaron-le-boutillier.htmlChapter 16 - A Washing Machine Springs a Leak
At about ten the next morning I was in that comfortable slumber zone that is somewhere between being fully awake and fully asleep. Neither here nor there. I was vaguely aware of what was happening around me. I could recall that it had been a normal evening last night and I had no reason to leap out of bed. I turned over and listened to the sounds of the village. After last night I was a long way from being fully awake.
Suddenly my brain started informing me that there was a lot of commotion outside in the form of children screaming. I woke briefly and started thinking that someone was playing a joke and scaring the kids. Idiots. In my morning haze I made out that the sounds were similar to that of children playing and screaming. As I turned over, something in my mind alerted me to the fact that the screaming children sounded genuine almost making me scared to listen to them. At least my brain told me these were children. After all, why would adults be screaming like that? My memory drifted back to the bizarre worry I had last night about a fire. I could not smell any burning. But the screaming continued and now I could hear it was mixed with another noise that was building. A crunching, grinding and increasingly roaring noise. Half awake and half asleep I suddenly became very much awake. It would be almost another two days before I would sleep again.
As I finally awoke I heard in Thai, screams of wing wing which means ‘run, run’ and total confusion and panic. Mixed in with the screams was the sound of feet pounding on the sand street outside my window. I jumped out of bed and pushed open my wooden window. I looked down on to the street. Straight away I saw Heinz with Anna under his arms and Tina holding on to his hand. I shouted down to him and Heinz looked at me for a brief second with eyes that will haunt me till the day I die.
They were the eyes of pure animal fear, eyes of pure animal panic and eyes of utter human disbelief. My throat instantly dried up and I found myself with a tear in the corner of my eye as I stared at the total panic and uncertainty that had gripped the so-certain Heinz as he stood staring at what I was about to see. At first I saw a small rivulet of water trickling down the street and started thinking: someone’s washing machine had flooded.
Heinz turned with his two daughters and ran into his shop. He pulled down the metal shutters to the shop behind him. I looked down the street and could only see people, children, tourists, Thais running, “wing wing run run” they screamed. In Thai, in English, in Swedish, in German, in Danish, in Hebrew, in Russian. I turned from the window to run out of my bedroom and on to the open staircase leading down to the street. I felt trapped but already I knew that going down those stairs was not an option. My first thought was that there was a mad man with a gun or a knife running down the street and randomly hitting out to anyone that got in his way. But I had not heard any gunshots, yet. I ran on to the staircase expecting to see a group of mad psychotic terrorists. I had not heard an explosion, yet. Just a thousand or more screams in tens of different languages. A United Nations of fear and panic.
I got half way down the stairs when I could clearly see the reason for panic. It had nothing do with Mister Osama and his compatriots. The trickle of water from the leaky washing machine had now risen slightly in the past few seconds from first opening my bedroom window. It was now hurtling down the street at an alarming speed. It was literally being pumped towards me, or so it seemed, by some unseen power behind. As I looked down towards Mama Restaurant and the main street I could see two walls of water surging around Angelo’s restaurant where we had enjoyed a magical Christmas Day evening the night before. The two walls of water converged on the corner shop.
The travel agent on the opposite side of the main street imploded and exploded all in one go as it seemed to be morphing into a lump of contorted wood and corrugated iron interspersed with the shattering sound of glass. In that split second I turned my head to the side and watched for maybe one second as another wall of water and the imploded/exploded remains of the building came surging towards me. The sound of the power of water, the crunching and folding of buildings and the screams of desperation, the panic of people being overtaken by this wall mesmerized me as I stood there. I was like a rabbit sat looking at the headlights.
The wall of water and mixed up rubble and mixed up people hit my flimsy staircase within a second or two. I instinctively ran back up the stairs towards my room. Really, there was nowhere else to run. The sound was deafening and the shrills and panic of fear were all around me. It was the sound of solid buildings being crushed and wooden pillars groaning under the immense force, the power, of the water that were most unusual and new to me. As I got to the top of the staircase I saw the couple in the room next to me standing outside their door completely frozen and embracing each other.
I ran straight down the narrow corridor and started panicking, heavily. There was nowhere to go. I looked back and knew that if the wall of water chose to come up the wooden staircase, the route I had just come along, then it was goodbye Aaron. That was a quick life.
The water was rushing through the narrow opening to the street and being funnelled at great force into the stair well as it rushed down faster than any human could run. I started jumping up and banging on the ceiling and the walls in a desperate attempt to find an escape route that would at least take me further up than this level which was now perilously close to the rising wall of water. It was becoming a futile attempt. I started screaming at the couple who continued to stand and hold each other.
“Fuck. We’re going to die. Fuck.”
I repeated what was already seemingly obvious.
I must have run up and down the narrow corridor for a few seconds before giving up the futile search and going back to the open staircase. The water was now surging around my thighs and I pushed both my hands against the side of the narrow wooden corridor and looked at the incredible but terrifying sight in front of me. The level of the water was now just below my line of sight. The current out in the street was incredible and the sound of buildings collapsing around me was deafening. The screams were now impossible to hear over the thunderous roar of the water and in that brief moment I knew this was it.
I was going to die. For the first time in my life I had resigned myself to dying. No more tomorrows, no more dreams, no more anything. It was goodbye Banana Boat Man. Goodbye to his close friend Mister Bum Boil. Goodbye Mum, goodbye Dad. Whoosh, that was Aaron Le Boutillier. Remember him? He had some grand plans for making a mint before he retired at forty. And then one day a leaking washing machine drowned him. What a way to go.
I stood in the corridor, tensioned against the walls and prepared myself that any second the current would finally sweep my legs from me and I would join the torrent of mangled wood, concrete, glass and corrugated roofing and thrashing, panic-driven humans that was still rushing passed me and on to wherever it was next headed.
My immediate thought in those brief seconds were of my Mum. I apologized to her in my mind for not being quick or smart enough to outwit this disaster and also for the pain I would put her in over the next few weeks. I closed my eyes and could feel my position and stability weakening as the water surged more.
The inherent ability a human, any animal really, has to survive is incredible. We’ve all read about animals that are stuck in traps or snares that will chew their way through a leg to release themselves. A few years ago I recall reading about a rock-climber who had an accident where he ended up with his arm trapped under a huge boulder on a lonely mountain far from anybody. After about the third day when he realised he was not going to be found and that he was also not going to live too much longer he got a small knife and slowly but surely he amputated his arm and freed himself. He lived to tell the tale.
Well anybody who has read this far will now know that I lived to tell the tale! However, I have no recollection of what happened in those next few seconds. I did not slowly and methodically amputate an arm. Or any other appendage for that matter. One second I was braced between the two corridor walls and feeling my grip sliding away as the waters continued to claw at my body. The next second I was on a balcony. The distance between where I had been standing and next door was minimal but I must have just leaped across. I then found myself running across the balcony towards the roof of the post office which was directly in front of the Phi Phi Hotel. From the balcony there was a small rise in height to the next roof top which I clambered up on. Within a few seconds I had gone from accepting death to being perched on the apex of a corrugated roof two buildings down from my original position.
As I sat perched on the roof as nonchalantly as if this was an everyday happening for Aaron the Roof Percher, I was overcome with an enormous explosion of relief.
“ I’m alive. I am alive. I do not believe it.”
For now. I had no clue what had happened and at that particular moment as I was perched on my corrugated iron roof I was not really trying to analyse what had gone on and what might yet go on. I was alive. Well alive. For now.
READ MORERead more from Aaron Le Boutillier’ s book, “And Then One Morning” here:
Chapter 16 - A Washing Machine Springs a Leak(what happened in those initial minutes when the first wave hit).
Chapter 17 - Rumbles down below(in a brief second – how do you process what is happening to you?)
Chapter 18 - Hey Ma, I’m on top of the World(Saving people!)
Chapter 19 – On the Edge of the Ring of Fire(How could this happen?)
Chapter 20 – Phi Phi Hotel Becomes SanctuaryRead more survivor stories at:
TSUNAMI SURVIVOR SITELabels: Aaron le Boutillier
CHAPTER 17: Rumbles Down Below
RUMBLES DOWN BELOW
This is an excerpt from Tsunami survivor Aaron Le Boutillier in his book “And Then One Morning.” For anyone caught up in the tsunami, however, it was all over in a matter of minutes. They were either alive or dead. Over a quarter of a million people lost their lives while millions who survived had to deal with the tragedy in countless ways. Aaron continues to live and work in Southeast Asia. The proceeds of his book continue to make a difference in Thailand. Read more about Aaron and his book here:
Aaron Le Boutillierhttp://phukettsunami.blogspot.com/2009/04/survivor-aaron-le-boutillier.htmlChapter 17 - Rumbles down below
We live on a generally solid little planet that provides us with everything we need. We have enough oxygen to breath. But not enough to fry the atmosphere every time we strike a match. We get just enough heat from the sun to make sure that our Little Planet’s water does not all turn to ice. But we don’t get so much heat that all of our Little Planet’s precious water gets boiled away as steam. Astronomers hunting for life in the Universe are looking for a planet like ours, around a star like ours. And at roughly the same distance as ours. They call this the Goldilocks Zone. Everything is just right. But our Little Planet is not quite as quiet as we generally understand. It is certainly not an inert lump of rock. Deep within, the pressures and heat turn rocks and metals to liquid.
I learned all about the powers within our Little Planet when I did my geography O Level at sixteen. However, that tiny little part of the Little Planet that I come from, the island called Jersey, seemed to be, to me, an especially quiet and innocuous corner of our Little Planet. Most of the dramatic stuff I learned in our Geography lessons does not happen on Jersey. We don’t have a waterfall like Niagara or the Victoria Falls where billions of gallons of water flow over every hour or so. Jersey does not have volcanoes and earthquakes – the two dramatic events that helped to show that a crackpot idea called Continental Drift really is real. These things happen elsewhere. Jersey doesn’t drift. It’s always been where it is.
I recall my Geography teacher in the eighties teaching us all about Continental Drift. And he was man enough to admit that when he was our age, indeed when he was learning Geography at university, he had learned that Continental Drift was a joke theory. Not to be taken seriously. Something to have a snigger about.
But he now freely admitted to all us wide-eyed sixteen year olds that continents move about.
“But Sir. We’re a titchy little island, Sir. What about Jersey, Sir? Do we move about?
The Theory of Continental Drift could be used to explain why South America and Africa looked like parts of a jig-saw puzzle. It was not some coincidence. They really had been joined at one time. And then they drifted apart and made the Atlantic Ocean. And, especially weird for a lad from Jersey, Continental Drift helped to explain how an island called India could make a head-on collision with Asia about fifty million years ago. My Geography teacher taught us that the Himalaya was living proof of that massive collision. Scrunched up like the bonnet of a car after it had run into a largely immoveable object such as a brick wall at high speed.
“Sir, will Jersey smash into France? Or will it smash into England? I hope it’s England, Sir.”
A few years later I sat amazed in front of the television as Sir David Attenborough struggled out of breath high up in the Himalaya as he showed fossils of marine animals.
Marine fossils high up in the mountains? Excuse me.
I learned that South America and Africa have been torn apart by the previously crackpot Theory of Continental Drift. And I learned that the Himalayan Mountains, the tallest on our Little Planet, were created by the high-speed collision of a large island called India with the even larger lump of land called continental Asia. However, elsewhere on our generally friendly Little Planet there are other areas where continents are not being torn apart or being rammed into each other. These are areas where continents are rubbing along-side each other.
A sport I am particularly keen on is wrestling/grappling. And I hasten to add I do Real Wrestling. I do not mean the farce where over-muscled, steroid-compromised show-biz characters wearing ridiculous face-paint and garish costumes, and going by dramatic names like Gentleman Jackhammer Jim slam each other around while semi-naked porn-star wanna-be’s urge them on. No, wrestling in its purest form involves two powerful, equally matched forces coming together. Tremendous amounts of energy between two human beings gets expended while the two forces come together. But then one gives. And suddenly it is all over. There is a winner and there is a loser.
I had grown up with dramatic stories showing us all how wild and hugely uncertain our Little Planet can really be. Over thirty five thousand human beings got a sudden but very final (for them) taste of that violence one morning in late August, 1883. A little island, smaller than Jersey and only slightly bigger than Phi Phi, decided to evaporate. Of course, islands don’t evaporate. Not really. But in one almighty explosion, several billion tonnes of Krakatoa went somewhere else. That is evaporation by my understanding.
We now know that much of it sank into the big hole that opened up beneath it which was created by the explosive powers way down deep beneath the ocean waves. The rest of it ended up in the upper atmosphere of our Little Planet and spent the next few years giving us all spectacular sunsets. But thirty five thousand people never got to be dazzled by these spectacular sunsets. They awoke one morning and went about their usual daily routine. Stopped dramatically by a wall of water that was so high it left a Dutch warship several miles inland and over a hundred feet above the level of the sea. The twenty eight sailors on that warship never knew what hit them. Neither did the other thirty five thousand or so people that died that morning.
And so it was on December 26, 2004. The day of the Big Wave.
READ MORE
Read more from Aaron Le Boutillier’ s book, “And Then One Morning” here:
Chapter 16 - A Washing Machine Springs a Leak (what happened in those initial minutes when the first wave hit).
Chapter 17 - Rumbles down below(in a brief second – how do you process what is happening to you?)
Chapter 18 - Hey Ma, I’m on top of the World (Saving people!)
Chapter 19 – On the Edge of the Ring of Fire(How could this happen?)
Chapter 20 – Phi Phi Hotel Becomes SanctuaryRead more survivor stories at:
TSUNAMI SURVIVOR SITELabels: Aaron le Boutillier
CHAPTER 18: Hey Ma, I'm on top of the World
HEY MA - I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD
This is an excerpt from
Tsunami survivor Aaron Le Boutillier in his book “And Then One Morning.” For anyone caught up in the tsunami, however, it was all over in a matter of minutes. They were either alive or dead. Over a quarter of a million people lost their lives while millions who survived had to deal with the tragedy in countless ways. Aaron continues to live and work in Southeast Asia. The proceeds of his book continue to make a difference in Thailand. Read more about Aaron and his book here:
Aaron Le Boutillier
http://phukettsunami.blogspot.com/2009/04/survivor-aaron-le-boutillier.htmlChapter 18 - Hey Ma, I’m on top of the World
I could see that if I ran across the apex of the roof I would arrive at one of the Phi Phi Hotel balconies which with one small jump I could climb over and on to. I now had my path of further escape clearly mapped out. However, instead of taking this, I simply sat there mesmerized by what had happened. I still could not, or would not, comprehend it.
From my new vantage point I could see into the living area of Heinz’s former apartment above Moskito. And I could see the new manager Christophe looking out of the window at the carnage. I shouted to him to see if Heinz and the family were with him. He shrugged his shoulders in a Gaelic sort of way and shook his head and lifted his hands up in desperation.
My heart sank. They were not with him and yet I had seen Heinz run with the girls back into the shop. He had pulled down the shutters. Surely he would then have made for the stairs and climbed upward and away from the water. I felt a sudden sickening of the stomach but reassured myself that if anyone was going to survive this thing, it would be Heinz. And he would have the girls with him. And what of Oiy and Little Dino? I had not seen them at all. Just Heinz and the girls. Where were they?
This was the first time in my life that I had heard terror. Sheer terror expressed en masse in so many different languages. And all at once. And a few seconds before I had made my modest little contribution as I ran up and down the corridor screaming at a couple who were holding on to each other with all the love in the World they had for each other that we, meaning certainly me and them, were going to die.
As I sat on the roof my ears grew accustomed to the awful and terrifying wailing noises. What was most disturbing were the screams of people from all directions, shouts for help and just screams of undecipherable words in many languages (Thai, English, Swedish, German, Danish, Japanese, Kohrean – you name it, they screamed it) of sheer panic and desperation. As I scanned over the roof tops I saw semi-naked and naked bodies scrambling on to other roof tops. I saw people hanging on to telephone poles. I saw people hanging on to signage. Anything that was available as the current rushed passed them. Some people were holding on to the hands of others less fortunate who were struggling against the waters. It seemed to have no intention of stopping. A relentlessly rises mass of the stuff. Some people were just lying on the roof tops with obvious injuries made apparent by the strange way their limbs were placed.
After a few more seconds, I saw JP’s head as he leaned out of one of his windows on the top floor of Fatty’s. This made the corner of the street on to the local market area. We both looked at each other. There was no need for words. We were both quite simply just happy to see each other. He was alive. I was alive. Thank God, or the Gods, for that. Looking down the street I also saw Angelo with his daughter who had been visiting him from France. He had a group of his staff on the balcony next to what now remained of his restaurant. They were alive. I was alive. Thank God, or the Gods, for that. And then I thought of Heinz. And I thought of Oiy. And I thought of Tina. And I thought of Anna. And I thought of Little Dino.
I was on Phi Phi because of these five people. Sure, it was great to see JP, Angelo, and other friends I had made over the years. But I had come to Phi Phi primarily to see Heinz and to help him and his family move to Phuket. To start a new life. The end of eighteen year on Phi Phi and the start of a whole new adventure.
As I looked at his wrecked dive shop I found myself thinking how he and his family had moved from their upstairs apartment to downstairs so that Christophe and his girlfriend could get established. I thought about how Oiy had argued about going upstairs to use the bathroom. How I remember a million years ago seeing Heinz with Anna and Tina down in the street below me. Where the fuck were they now? They had not gone upstairs and joined Christophe. Why not?
By this stage, the water was starting to recede. It must have been only a few minutes that the water level stayed as high as it did. But it still took a long long time for ten or fifteen feet of water to drain away. Water now seemed to be rushing in the opposite direction as it drained down the street just as quick as it had rushed up it.
I jumped down from my roof-top perch on to the balcony that I had run across and tried to peer into Moskito dive shop. The metal shutter that I saw Heinz pull down was completely ripped off and I could see directly into the carnage that had been his pride and joy. The water at this stage was about head height in the street and there was the faintest hint of a voice mumbling, trying to cry out but failing miserably, within the carnage inside. My first thought was that this was Oiy or one of the daughters as the voice was quite clearly female.
I walked along the balcony and started climbing down the external staircase. I stopped half way where the water line was and once again peered in to Moskito where I could make out the shape of a woman pinned under the wooden partition that had once separated the main shop from the retail shop next door. The partition had collapsed and one of the wooden struts had fallen across the woman and had trapped her. I could see she was alive but she was having trouble breathing as the level of the water rushing back passed her was just below her jaw line. She was choking on water that was splashing in to her mouth. She could not move because of the wreckage pinning her in place. I had no idea who she was. She looked Thai and I could only assume that she was Oiy.
I would be lying if I wrote about how I dived in to the torrent of water and swam across the street to save her. I couldn’t. I was still too shocked at what had happened and what was still happening around me. I hesitated. I just stared at the woman. I knew that I wanted to do something. But I was afraid of the water which was now racing down the lane while slowly reducing its depth. And I was afraid of the hidden sharp, jagged bits of rubble that were being swept along with in it.
I walked slowly further down the stairs until my feet were immersed in the flow of water. There was a washing machine which had been lodged against the staircase with a very long rubber hose. It was being swirled around in the current of debris. I pulled the hose and wrapped it around my wrist and slowly lowered myself into the water. By this stage the water was only waist high and as my feet touched the ground I could feel the force of the water pulling me off-balance. It was strong but I was confident I could reach across the narrow street to Moskito. After all, on an island with no cars the widest of streets are little more than narrow lanes.
I stood there for maybe a minute or so. After all, I was safe. I was still uncertain as to going over. The woman was struggling but she was keeping her head above the water, which was now receding at last. My heart was thumping and her increasingly feeble moans for help were making me anxious. As I looked around I remember seeing a group of people on the roofs and on the balcony of the hotel. They all looked like they were under a spell. They just stared all around themselves. Some were half dressed in tattered clothes. Others were just kneeling and hugging their bodies. Staring blankly, almost catatonic.
I made the plunge. I started wading across the street and instantly knew I was doing the right thing. It didn’t take long to reach the front of the shop. I don’t know how, but when I reached the shop the water level was different and I found myself swimming rather forcibly into Moskito. The woman seemed completely unresponsive at my sudden appearance. She was bleeding from her forehead and apart from a few stands of clothing she was naked. Her clothes had been torn from her body by the force of the water. Seeing where she was pinned I was really amazed she was still alive.
I could make out that she was not Oiy. Oiy was a slender woman while this was another large-framed lady who I could not recognize. I learned later that she was a friend of the owner of the Thai restaurant opposite Moskito who had been washed into the shop as the water retreated.
As I swam in I became very concerned at the noises still coming from all directions. It was a groaning of wooden beams and I could clearly see that most of the internal walls of Moskito had collapsed. I was acutely aware that the whole ceiling could come tumbling down on top of me at any moment. As I looked up at the ceiling I saw drops of water forming and splashing down all around me. I have a vivid memory of treading water for a few seconds as if I was in cave and being momentarily hypnotized by the strange environment I was in. To see the familiar dive shop swirling with rubble, fax machines and computers and an almost naked Thai lady who was barely able to speak trapped under rubble was unsettling. This was not Thailand.
I reached the woman and could clearly see she was badly injured as well as suffering from shock. The wood came away quite easily but my problem was with her. It was at this stage I first heard a phrase that would be repeated many times over the next hour or more.
“The second wave.”
“There’s another surge.”
This echoed into the shop from outside. I was starting to panic once again. When I look back I think I have panicked once or twice in some thirty years or more. I had now panicked several times in as many minutes. My immediate thought was:
“Now come on God. Give me a break will you. This really isn’t playing the game you know.”
I had to really breathe deep to stay in there with her and help her out. My first instinct was to get the hell out the shop and back to the safety of the external staircase opposite. Sanctuary. However, I managed to pull, rather ungracefully, the woman from the rubble so she was now in my arms as I was treading water. She didn’t struggle or try and hit me, as I had been taught may happen on various diving rescue courses. She was just incapable of helping herself. She was not hysterical, just frozen with fear and unable to move. Like so many others, she was in a state of catatonia.
“Chuay eng.”
I pleaded with her.
“Chuay eng.”
I repeated, the Thai phrase for ‘help yourself’.
She finally started to move and it wasn’t long before we had reached the entrance to the shop and managed to wade across the street. By this time there were two Thais standing on the staircase of what had been my Guesthouse and they reached out and grabbed a hand each and pulled her out of the water and on to the staircase. I pulled myself up and seeing she was apparently safe I returned my attention to looking after Number One. I ran back on to the roof apex (my sanctuary from the first wave) in front of the hotel and gingerly walked across the apex to the balcony. I was to repeat this walk many times over the next hour or so.
I could see once again that Angelo was standing on the balcony down the street and he could clearly see my path to the Phi Phi Hotel. The water was still running down the street, but was by this stage only knee height. People were still shouting about the second wave and Angelo indicated to me that he wanted to get his daughter and staff to the relative safety of the more solid, concrete Phi Phi Hotel. But he was now obviously concerned with the references to more waves. After a few seconds of screaming to each other across the roof-tops we threw caution to the wind and met in the street. We started evacuating people from his restaurant up the stairs of my former guesthouse, to the balcony across, and up on to the apex of the roof.
This became the only route to the hotel for people trapped in this area and we assisted around thirty people to the hotel this way. JP and his family also appeared at this time. JP and I gave each other a hug but said nothing. The main problems with this route was that the climb from the balcony to the apex was just a little too high for most so I sat on the end of the roof and physically pulled people up. As I had walked across the roof several times already I had come to realize that you had to walk directly on the apex or on the nails that connected the corrugated roofing to the struts of the roof structure. Anywhere else and you would simply risk falling through. How nobody fell through I will never know. That roof bent and flexed under the weight of many people that morning and I had my stomach in my mouth on more than one occasion. But it held.
READ MORERead more from Aaron Le Boutillier’ s book, “And Then One Morning” here:
Chapter 16 - A Washing Machine Springs a Leak (what happened in those initial minutes when the first wave hit).
Chapter 17 - Rumbles down below(in a brief second – how do you process what is happening to you?)
Chapter 18 - Hey Ma, I’m on top of the World (Saving people!)
Chapter 19 – On the Edge of the Ring of Fire(How could this happen?)
Chapter 20 – Phi Phi Hotel Becomes SanctuaryRead more survivor stories at:
TSUNAMI SURVIVOR SITELabels: Aaron le Boutillier
CHAPTER 19: On The Edge of the Ring of Fire
ON THE EDGE OF THE RING OF FIRE
This is an excerpt from
Tsunami survivor Aaron Le Boutillier in his book “And Then One Morning.” For anyone caught up in the tsunami, however, it was all over in a matter of minutes. They were either alive or dead. Over a quarter of a million people lost their lives while millions who survived had to deal with the tragedy in countless ways. Aaron continues to live and work in Southeast Asia. The proceeds of his book continue to make a difference in Thailand. Read more about Aaron and his book here:
Aaron Le Boutillier
http://phukettsunami.blogspot.com/2009/04/survivor-aaron-le-boutillier.htmlChapter 19 – On the Edge of the Ring of Fire
The seventeen thousand islands that make up Indonesia represent one of the most volcanically and earthquake active regions on our Little Planet. Only Japan and maybe New Zealand come close. A major reason for this is that two massive continental plates are engaged in the Mother of All Wrestling bouts. And this is the brute force wrestling that I engage in. Not the Face-Paint, Sparkly Outfits and Porno Star Variety. Neither of these two continental masses is prepared to give an inch. They are involved in a fifty million year struggle. Every second of every day these massive forces are rubbing up against each other. And they will probably still be at this in another fifty million years when mankind is just another blip in the fossil record of evolution.
Back in those far-off geography lessons I recall learning about Mister Richter and his earthquake scale. In those far-off days it was fixed between one and ten. This always confused me.
“Sir, how could Mister Richter be so sure there would never be an earthquake bigger than ten?”
In researching for this book some twenty years after I had those lessons I have now learned that the Richter Scale has been modified to be an open-ended scale. Maybe if I had continued with geology we could have been discussing Le Boutillier’s Open-ended Modification of the Richter Scale. I could live with that small piece of fame. But instead, I drifted off to Phi Phi and allowed somebody else that glory.
And I found myself involved in one of the biggest earthquakes that had hit our Little Planet in recorded history.
READ MORERead more from Aaron Le Boutillier’ s book, “And Then One Morning” here:
Chapter 16 - A Washing Machine Springs a Leak (what happened in those initial minutes when the first wave hit).
Chapter 17 - Rumbles down below(in a brief second – how do you process what is happening to you?)
Chapter 18 - Hey Ma, I’m on top of the World (Saving people!)
Chapter 19 – On the Edge of the Ring of Fire(How could this happen?)
Chapter 20 – Phi Phi Hotel Becomes SanctuaryRead more survivor stories at:
TSUNAMI SURVIVOR SITELabels: Aaron le Boutillier
CHAPTER 20: Phi Phi Hotel Becomes a Sanctuary
This is an excerpt from
Tsunami survivor Aaron Le Boutillier in his book “And Then One Morning.” For anyone caught up in the tsunami, however, it was all over in a matter of minutes. They were either alive or dead. Over a quarter of a million people lost their lives while millions who survived had to deal with the tragedy in countless ways. Aaron continues to live and work in Southeast Asia. The proceeds of his book continue to make a difference in Thailand. Read more about Aaron and his book here:
Aaron Le Boutillier
http://phukettsunami.blogspot.com/2009/04/survivor-aaron-le-boutillier.htmlChapter 20 – Phi Phi Hotel Becomes Sanctuary
After helping people across the roof I finally made my way to the Phi Phi Hotel balcony. My bare feet were now blistering thanks to the metal roof. And I desperately needed water. The apex of the roof was scorching hot in the late morning tropical sun and I was still only dressed in my underpants which I had been wearing when I jumped out of bed on hearing those first terrifying screams. Many a naked or semi-naked person had also been rudely awakened by this still incomprehensible event. Others, like the Thai lady I first helped, had merely had their clothes ripped from their bodies by the force of the water.
By the time I had hauled myself on to the solid concrete balcony of the Phi Phi Hotel I was 100% charged up with adrenalin. It was beginning to flow out of my ears. I had found my escape path in case of the second surge that people were still talking about. And I had now decided that I would go back down on to the street and look for my friends, Heinz and Oiy. There were many people on the balcony of the Phi Phi Hotel that I climbed into and as I made my way into the hotel I could clearly see that seemingly everyone on the island had been making their way across roof tops to the hotel and that many had run here when the initial wave had washed in. There were bodies everywhere. But, thankfully, they were all alive. A quick glance around told me that Heinz and Oiy and the kids were not here.
As I made way down the corridors of the second floor there were people everywhere administering first aid and using pieces of clothing to tie off wounds. I saw one guy sitting in a room with a mass of clothing tightly wrapped around his head covering a horrific injury. His face was swollen out of proportion and he was just staring into space. The wave had only just receded. But already somebody had rescued this guy and had dressed his horrific wounds as best they could. He was alive and clearly looked as if he would live now. He just sat and stared ahead. Incapable of doing anything. I wanted to say:
“You’re alive, you’re safe. Relax.”
But these words of comfort seemed fatuous. I left him to his own silent contemplation. What might he have seen and experienced? Was he on a honeymoon and seen his wife torn from his fingers? If so, then my words would not have helped. Would not have soothed. My words would have been like God twisting the knife. Thanks God.
But this man’s life had been saved by someone’s unacknowledged and selfless act. This was not the first I saw. It was not the last. And in all modesty I do believe that I did my small share. We all did. In the next few hours thousand of quietly unacknowledged and selfless acts of humanity were carried out.
As I turned left down another corridor I saw a group of Scandinavians attempting to knock down the doors on both sides of the corridor. They explained that there were people outside in the wash and we could possibly try and haul them out of the rubble soup and on to the balconies if we could get into the rooms. One of them picked up a small wooden table that was outside every third room door and smashed it against the door. But to no avail.
I was still heavily charged with adrenaline and what happened next is one of my most bizarre memories of that day. Dressed only in my underpants I took the table from the guy and for some reason I decided to aim my strike against the door lock. With over fifteen years of martial arts experience and enough adrenalin in my body to subdue an ox and his cart, I lifted the table high and swung it firmly into the lock with an almighty roar that would’ve made John Rambo go weak at the knees.
Three things happened in very quick succession. Firstly, the lock went flying into the room and hit the balcony window behind allowing the door to swing open. Secondly the table shattered in my hands and thirdly a group of Scandinavians and a Jersey boy dressed in his underpants all looked very surprised. In that instant I was no longer Banana Boat Man. I was no longer Roof Top Percher Man. I had become Doorlock Destroyer.
They rushed into the room and I proceeded to run down the corridor smashing every door with my newly discovered superhuman powers. I had the underpants. All that was missing was the cape. I suspect there is a group of Scandinavians out there who will vividly remember a half naked, shaven-headed madman running down the corridor smashing doors open with assorted decorative corridor tables.
When I reached the bottom of the corridor, we opened a door and a group of us ran into the room and opened a balcony that was facing in the direction of the local market. We could see that this was almost completely demolished and there were people on the roof of the opposite building in panic. There were also a group of about ten people who had been washed on to a ledge just below us and were desperately pleading for us to pull them on to the balcony. They wanted a share of our sanctuary also.
As I made my way through the hotel I met one young guy in his twenties who was a born leader and was starting to take control. Somebody needed to. We both instinctively climbed over the balcony on to a small ledge below. I leaned against the wall and he grabbed my hand and leant over the edge and managed to pull each terrified person up. The process took several minutes and I remember being impressed at the guy’s bravery and strength. The drop from the edge was high enough to kill him and many of the people he was pulling up were not making it easy for him.
I had been very lucky with the Thai woman. She had just flopped back and let me do the moving. Far worse is when people are panicked and fighting. Many were panicking and giving the poor guy a wriggling dead weight to pull up. However, he managed it. People can and will rally together to do extraordinary things. People in the room were now raiding the fridges and each person pulled over was immediately either given a bottle of water or someone was there to dress their wounds with torn bed linen. One of the few luxury hotels on Koh Phi Phi had now become a battle-field hospital.
Having rescued another clutch of people, I walked out of the room with this guy and we decided that we needed to coordinate a strategy to deal with the mass panic and hysteria that was now in full swing. We both agreed that everyone would be here for at least a night and that two major concerns would be fresh water for drinking and for first aid. As the wall of water had subsided dramatically at this stage we rounded up some volunteers to start bringing water into the hotel and to get as much medication and bandaging as we could from the various pharmacies dotted along the main street.
At the mention of pharmacies I suddenly remembered Mister Bum Boil. Of course, he had not gone away. But he had suddenly gone from being a huge pain in the…… posterior. To being an unimportant minor annoyance. Not even that really. I knew that there was a pharmacy and a 7-11 within a few feet of the main entrance to the Phi Phi Hotel. That is where I directed our medical search team.
As we walked down the stairs there were groups of people at each level. We explained we were getting water and medical supplies and asked for people to help. We also asked if anyone was looking after any badly wounded that might need specifics. People from all around shouted requests and it was apparent that we needed bandaging and iodine or anything to curb the infections which in the end was to plague thousands of people all over Asia for days and weeks and months to come. It was still only about an hour after the washing machine had sprung its leak.
Cuts were going to be left to fester for hours and sometimes days before they got the correct medication. As a lot of the cuts were due to rusty sheets of corrugated roofing slicing through the water and debris, wounds were deep and needed cleaning urgently.
As I walked out of the hotel we had around five guys to help us. I looked up at the hotel and there were literally hundreds of anxious faces leaning over the balconies staring at us. Some were shouting about the second tsunami. Many were just blank. The Second Wave Devotees must have thought we were mad. And must’ve thought this was the last that would be seen of us.
READ MORERead more from Aaron Le Boutillier’ s book, “And Then One Morning” here:
Chapter 16 - A Washing Machine Springs a Leak (what happened in those initial minutes when the first wave hit).
Chapter 17 - Rumbles down below(in a brief second – how do you process what is happening to you?)
Chapter 18 - Hey Ma, I’m on top of the World (Saving people!)
Chapter 19 – On the Edge of the Ring of Fire(How could this happen?)
Chapter 20 – Phi Phi Hotel Becomes SanctuaryRead more survivor stories at:
TSUNAMI SURVIVOR SITELabels: Aaron le Boutillier
