by Court Rand, at Ecuador Freedom Bike Rental
posted here with permission from his father Bob Rand, Northampton, New Hampshire
A lot of people have asked how we are, what happened, etc. – so I will try to recount what I can here.
I was with my parents (who were visiting from New Hampshire), Sylvain, our mechanic Diego Ordoñez and his wife Nancy Rogel and their three kids. Enjoying the beach at Peter Stromberg and Maija Burglin Strombergs beautiful beach home on Canoa Beach (a brick house)…
We had just watched a beautiful sunset and Nancy and Diego just returned from the market with fresh fish and shrimp. We had been watching the kids and they followed their mother into the house when the quake struck. We were outside on the porch. It started slowly – just like a normal little quake that is not uncommon here. I said – “I think we ought to move outside” and just then it really started to shake We ran out into the sand and the kids and Nancy followed just seconds behind. What a relief. After the hard shaking lulled, the ground moved in waves for another 45 seconds. But we all ran to to the trucks with the immediate fear of an imminent Tsunami. We took both trucks and headed across the street to the dirt road that leads up the cliffs to where the para-gliders jump off – to the Shanti Lodge – but the road was blocked by a landslide and we didn’t get far. So we backed out and decided to head south around to the road towards the inland hamlet of Rio Canoa. But we didn’t get far, with the bridge just south of Canoa had buckled and we were very concerned about crossing it. We stopped and we heard calls for help from the house just there at the bridge. People came out to say that there were people trapped in there and needed help. I started down to the house to help and then realized I was just wearing a bathing and no shoes, didn’t have any flashlight or anything on me. There was broken glass all around. I looked down and then back up to tell the frantic person asking for my help that I would be back after putting on some shoes.
We got back to the house and we found our shoes and a little composure. I told Peter about the house that had fallen over and he said “that is Allen and Cathy’s house -lets go NOW!” I had just met Allen and Cathy the night before. We had sat out drinking beers and enjoying the Canoa life and got to know them . They just moved here from New Hampshire. So we got the shoes on and hurried back there. We arrived to find Cathy sprawled out in her blood on a surfboard and Allen was being carried out by two guys. He was in terrible pain – seemed to have a dislocated hip. Cathy was very lethargic and saying she couldn’t feel anything. She couldn’t feel her legs and was bleeding from her head. She needed immediate urgent medical attention.
Maija – who is trained as a nurse – was so calm and following perfect first aid protocol. She immobilized Cathy’s neck with my t-shirt. We secured her to the surfboard and carefully lifted her into the bed of the VW pickup. Then we lifted Allen into the truck as he screamed in pain. We had to sit him in the back seat. He was so brave. I could tell he was in excruciating pain but didn’t want to delay his wife getting to the hospital in any way so he bit his lip and settled into his seat.
We drove over the bridge that had buckled – slowly – carefully – not to shake Cathy as much as possible. We didn’t know where to go. We had checked the radio – there was nothing but music and commercials – and one station with the DJ saying there was an earthquake and that the first information coming in was that the epicenter was to the north, in Pedernales. So we decided we should try to head to Bahia de Caraquez – south about 15 miles. Bahia is on the other side of a big bay and a bridge that is about 1.5 miles long that was just completed in 2010. We hoped that the bridge was in tact. Its a big span….
We only got about a mile down the road and faced a huge landslide about 50 feet high. No chance of going over it. Sylvain turned the truck around and asked him to wait. I went out and found a break in the curb where we could possibly get down onto the beach below. It was blocked by a fence and big chain. And then seemingly out of nowhere a crowd formed around me and someone brought out a hammer and smashed through the lock on the chain and we tore the fence down by hand – a mad mob of desperate men all trying to bring people to the hospital. The fence was down in just a few seconds and we had the truck coming through the brush and trees and a steep descent in loose sand onto the beach. We were able to drive along the beach for a few miles until the Briceño river. We joined the road back towards Bahia. Passing through San Vincente we thrilled to see that the bridge over to Bahia de Caraquez was open.
We first tried the IESS hospital in Bahia – it was closed – looked destroyed, ransacked, a mess. No lights no life. Majia yells from the back of the truck “Go to Leonidas Plaza” so we head that way – trying to remember where all the speed bumps are (we hit an unpainted unmarked one a bit hard) and trying to get there as soon as possible – we didn’t know if it would be open. We get to the hospital and it is somewhat chaotic but there is a team there and they provide us with a stretcher and a neck brace. We carefully transfer Cathy to a bed that is set up in the parking lot of the hospital. There were concerns the hospital had too much structural damage so they set up a triage center outside. They got Cathy hooked up with an IV and we focused now on getting Allen out of the back seat. Again – he was in great pain. But we got them there and we were relived to see the hospital was functioning. There were lots of bloody people there, dazed and confused people, children screaming and crying and lots of people running around trying to attend to the injured and prioritizing who they needed to help. They immediately went to stitching Cathy’s face which was ripped up pretty bad. She was able to follow the fingers back and forth but I think her eyes were not completely dilating as they should. There was some concern to say the least.
We got Allen seated on a bed next to Cathy and I gave him a Valium which I had the presence of mind to shove in my pocket when I had been back to get my shoes. (In Canoa I usually buy Valium to help me sleep occasionally – they are easy to get in the farmacia there). We thought if his hip was dislocated this would help him get it back into the socket…
Once everything was underway and situated – a spray of drizzle started falling. The sky was clear – we could see the stars – so it seemed very strange that this spray was coming down. I looked around and couldn’t see a single cloud.
Then a rumor spread through the hospital parking lot that this was the ocean and a big wave was coming in. Everyone was talking about Tsunami and then they started grabbing their injured loved ones, pushing wheel chairs and in a panicked run started heading towards the hill behind the hospital. I didn’t know what to do – but weighing the option of whether I could do any more for Allen and Cathy and whether I should maybe just do the safe thing – if there was a Tsunami – I would not want to be there. We got in the truck and headed up the hill, piling people in the back of the truck and brought as many as we could to higher ground. But nothing came of it and we checked the radio and there was no talk of tsunami – so we headed back down.
Then it started to rain and Sylvain and I moved many patients and their beds from the open parking lot to an area that was covered with a thin tin roof. We made sure Cathy and Allen were together. Then with Majia in good control of the situation, we decided we should head back to Canoa to see if other people needed to be brought to the hospital.
Back in Canoa we found a ghost town. There was nobody there. Everyone had fled to the hills above in fear of a Tsunami. We decided to go to the church and see if there was anyone there that needed help. The nuns that greeted us told us there was a man that should see a doctor. They didn’t believe us at first when we told them the bridge to Bahia was open. We assured them that we could get him to the hospital and then we met Mike Fitzpatrick – a happy Canadian man in his 60’s who had his head wrapped in bandages and a face full of blood. He looked like something out of a horror film. There was blood all around his eyes and dripping down his chest. He had few puncture wounds
Mike told us he was on the third floor of one of the hotels in the center of town and that when the quake started someone told him to hide under a table and he did and was glad he did as everything came crashing down around him and he said he surfed down three floors of debris and found himself alive. He made his way to the church. Good Irish instinct!
We only made it about 3 blocks from the church with Mike in the back seat when we came across a truck that was using a rope to try to pull some debris out of a collapsed building. We stopped and with our truck and winch we said we could help. Everyone was very happy to see we had a very powerful winch (10,000 pound capacity) attached to the front of our truck.
I got out and found that there was a man inside this 6 floor hotel. The bottom two floors had collapsed. Inside the debris was a man and his wife who were laying in bed. His wife was killed instantly but he was alive next to her in the debris. A full column of iron rebar and concrete had crushed his leg. The twisted rebar had pierced through and hooked his calf like a fish hook. His full ankle and foot where under the column.
I reached in and saw the man and he was in terrible pain. I reached over and looked at the situation, feeling down the length of his leg to try to understand exactly how stuck he was. He was real stuck. The mattress and inner steel coils were all rapped around his leg. It was a total mess. It looked so hopeless.
But he asked me if I could get him out. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know. But if felt down and felt where his leg was. It looked almost hopeless but it was definitely something we could do. I told him I wouldn’t leave him until he was out. We are going to get you out.
The guys already working on him were led by Jorge who is in the red shirt in the photos. He was the one that was relentless and was constantly there and determined. We worked for hours together. Stopping occasionally to overcome our frustration and decide on a new tack. Remove this debris. We tried getting a few car jacks together to try to lift the column. We tried clearing the debris. Someone brought a generator and a tool that could cut through concrete and steel.
The tools were old and the generator kept cutting out. There wasn’t any gas for a while. Then someone went a got some out of an abandoned car stuck in rubble. Then we didnt have a disk to cut the metal. Someone found a place to get one in a workshop. Ecuadorians are very resourceful.
I kept checking on Mike. I asked him if he wanted to go the hospital. He said no. He said lets get this guy to the hospital too.
After working about 5 hours – most of the guys working left. They were tired. It was just Sylvain, Jorge and tow other guys working on this.
Another guy was there too. He said basically – hey we should probably leave him. We may not be able to pull him out without really damaging him and causing him to bleed out. It might be better to leave him until more help arrives. Jorge and I considered this and said “No” – this guy needs to get out of there.
Oh and while we were under this rubble working – there were several aftershocks – each time we had to get out of there as quick as possible with the fear of the whole building coming down on us. I am sure that was extremely frustrating to Santiago (the guy trapped under the concrete column).
Jorge and two other guys kept working for two more hours. With us operating the winch and clearing debris and finally at about 5 am we got the dead wife out of there.
Then finally at twilight we saw the blue and red lights of two police cars. Finally! There had been no police, no firemen, no army this whole time….
And the police came in and helped but Jorge was not stopping and directed the whole thing. and we finally had him out from under the column at about 6 am. His leg was full of concrete and absolutely chewed up. It was definitely going to have to be amputated.
We put a mattress and sheet in the back of the police car which raced off towards the hospital.
We then brought Mike to the hospital – having to drive down the beach and back to the hospital. He was immediately taken care of and his wounds were much worse than we had thought. We were amazed that he sat so patiently while we extracted Santiago from the hotel.
We got back to Canoa at about 10 am. I was exhausted and needed to sleep.
That’s about it for now. Sorry I didn’t take more pictures. It was not my focus…
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