Patricia's Story

By Patricia Holland

17 Feb 2005

Early Boxing day morning at around 7o'clock I was walking the beach and did notice that it seemed wider.

This thought was fleeting and only later did I hear that the water receeds before it attacks. We came to our breakfast table at 9am or so and even though I was facing the water it seemed calm and uneventful not realising the force that was gathering only minutes away. The first bit of water came gently as if a pool was slightly overflowing and I saw the lovely dutch baby be frightened on the steps and got up tp pick him up and pass him to his mother approaching me. I looked to the sky and wondered, why all this water, when it is clear, calm and windless. There was no time for a second speculation when the water rose to five metres and pushed me with this tremendous force and smashed the wall I tried to scale and then banged me against the hotel wall across the road .I tried to scramble up it and reach the second floor but the waves took that down too and plunged me into the first level of the building, the balconies of the main floor rooms and under the water and into the flying tables,chairs and broken walls and glass. The ocean was a wringer washer as it spun me around and I grasped anything I could to stay above it , taking in alot of water and begging to not die here, not die now.

Eventually I was in open space and there saw my friend Frans who did not recognise me . It was the strangest thing to turn my head and see him, and we discovered later we were 1100 metres from the beach, from where we started. We figure we were in the water for 20 min.or so.The rage of the water started to subside and I clung to small trees surrounded by the scum of the filthy water now filled with sewage. Frans stood some meters away too tired to help but then he realised he could touch ground.I begged him to come get me, ,to get out and this sense of hurry was right because we got out in time before it could drag us back to the open sea. We would not have survived as we were so exhausted and I could not get my breath. A kind man lifted us over the barbed wire fence and we reached the roof of a house when the frightening call reached us that a second wave was coming so we climbed the hill behind the house. A local woman there saw my cut face and took some leaves and made a poultice for my cheek and it was said to have stemmed the flow of the blood and to help it coagulate. An aruyvedic treatment.

After sometime we were told to go to a hotel where I could get some first aid treatment. The water was still knee deep and the devastation was horrendous and a dead body with thick foam around the mouth was tucked into a canoe laying on it's side. We walked the streets numb, shaking ,shell shocked. After I was treated we were told to stay there at the hotel that was situated high on the hill as the fear of another wave was strong. I lay all night listening to the menacing sound of the ocean, a dark beast circling ,waiting for it's chance to bring us down. Everyone held this same fear.

Slowly the deaths reached us, The dutch baby unable to be held by the mother died, the steward at the breakfast, the one with the mustache, the little child of the German and Sri Lankan couple and on and on .Children still being found lying dead and alone, too small to handle the strength of the waves. Frans and I survived and it is still a wonder to us ..how? I am frightened of water, of deep water, of moving water.

Why me? I feel blessed and lucky but feel stalked too.

I feel death sits at my door now and missed this time but he is close. When the helicptor evacuating us landed ten minutes from Columbo because of a rain storm and we stepped into two feet of water, I felt again it's presence. When the flight home after the hospital took me through Singapore, Malaysia, Germany, Montreal Vancouver and the plane had much turbulence I was still in doubt as to whether I had escaped. I still feel contaminated water could be in my lungs as this cough I have persists. They are certainly unreasonably anxious thoughts.

Only in the hospital in Columbo were we able to see the extent of the disaster. I initially thought noone at home would know for awhile. That it would only be a little ticker tape at the bottom of the screen as Sri lanka is so far away.Dear Asia lying shattered and broken, I feel I have left a close warm friend behind all hurt and wounded.

Getting out of Anawatuna took three days as the roads were blocked with debris and the fear of another wave was high. Helicoptors circled constanly surveying the damage and evacuating diplomats and VIP people and we hoped the seriously wounded. On the third day the British High Commission reached us and organized a convoy of cars to take us( the wounded and families with children) to the nearest airstrip and we were to be flown out by the Indian Air Force and in my case straight to hospital in Columbo. They had already contacted our families and relieved them of their anxieties regarding our safety in the first day. I found this out later and was so grateful.

The Sri lankans in the hotel that housed us, fed us big pots of pasta and gave us drinking water and would not accept money. I saw the owner of Sea View working tirelessly helping people, checking who was alive and driving people out when the roads were clear. Big trucks went through the village distributing packets of curry and rice and bottled water.Driving out through the village was shocking as everything lay torn and mangled on either side of the road, nothing recognizable only the Buddha statue stood magnificently without a scratch.

The people in hospital , on the streets and in the airport often stopped to ask me" were you in the incident?" and then took my hands and said,"Thank the God you are safe!" Their empathy and kindness brought me to tears now knowing that over 70,000 at that time were dead, 70,000 not so lucky as me and now the numbers are rising. Sri Lanka after years of war and instability was at last standing upright and tourists were returning to this beautiful place and now not even fishing is possible as not only are boats destroyed but the fear of netting dead bodies is strong of the ocean returning all the dead to them. It breaks my heart this hand dealt to the poor again.