South Africa: Hour's delay saved SA sportsman from death  x6
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| South Africa |
December 30, 2004 
The South African Star, South Africa
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By Kevin McCallum
"Maybe I shouldn't be allowed to travel anymore."
These were the words, uttered yesterday from Bangkok, of relieved and thankful hockey goalkeeper David Staniforth.
On Sunday he was at the beach resort of Railey on mainland Thailand when a tsunami hit.
Staniforth - who was in goal for the SA team at the recent Athens Olympics - and his fiancée Julie Onody had planned to travel to the island resort of Phi Phi.
However, they were so enjoying Railey, a beach reachable only by boat, that they decided to stay a few more days.
On the day they left - the day the tsunami hit - a boat was supposed to pick them up at 10am
"God has spared our lives and given us another chance"
. It arrived an hour late. That hour's delay saved them. If the boat had been on time, they would have been on the sea between islands and not just casting off.
This has been an eventful year for Staniforth.
"I was watching television last night and they had the highlights
of all the events that happened - and I was involved in all of them," he said.
"We were in Madrid (in March) when the (train) bombs went off, I was at the Olympics and now this."
Staniforth, who is hoping to fly home in the next few days, is still devastated by this week's events.
"We still can't believe how lucky we are. We met so many people on the beach, people we became good friends with, and we don't know how many of them survived."
The day after the tsunami hit, Staniforth sent an e-mail to his parents and friends. Here is his account of what happened:
Wednesday December 29 2004 11.40am "What a terrible tragedy. I don't think the Western world quite understands how terrible this disaster is. We have, obviously, spent a lot of time with survivors of the tsunamis and heard some really sad stories; stories of people losing limbs, loved ones and in some cases their homes and businesses."
"All I can say is that God has spared our lives and given us another chance."
"(The boat) was being pushed into the water when the water got sucked from under the boat. All of a sudden we were on dry land again. Not only on dry land, but about 10m up the beach. It was unbelievable. We all had to get off the boat to push and I told Julz to stay on the boat. She jumped off, saying there was no ways she was staying on without me."
"We looked over the sea at the beach next door and saw what was an absolutely perfect wave racing, and I mean racing, to the shore."
It didn't look that big until it hit a cliff and we saw an enormous spray. I looked out at sea and saw boats tumbling towards us about 80m out on a huge perfect wave.
"I grabbed our bags and sprinted, screaming to people on the way to run. I looked back and just saw chaos. We ran barefoot through a construction site and over paths with thorns, broken glass and sharp stones and didn't even suffer a scratch."
"I fell quite badly over a fence as I was carrying all our luggage. About 500 people were stranded with us. They were screaming and crying. There was mass hysteria."
"All of a sudden we saw two massive waves about 3km out at sea rushing at an incredible pace towards Krabi, and people started going crazy."
"It was really weird because I assumed control and stood on a table and started shouting to everyone to relax and stay calm. I believe people would have died from trampling towards the cliffs behind us and I warned them that we were in more danger from ourselves than from any more waves."
"I spoke to the people every 20 minutes or so and reassured them, telling them that we were far away from the sea and high enough."
"I also organised a chain to move all the tables off the deck we were standing on as I believed this could also be dangerous if we were surrounded by water. It also gave something for the people to do and took their minds off the massive waves. We set up a medical area where we had four doctors helping out."
"After a while four more people joined me and we set up a committee. People were told to come to us with information, and we would pass on details to everyone. People would come to us in tears, seeking reassurance, and we all agreed to put on a brave and confident show. We were petrified ourselves as we heard the information being relayed to us."
"The Thai people were scared as they were receiving news on radio from the other islands, and we heard of the many deaths. I am not too sure how many people died on our beach or even on our boat, but I pray that there weren't too many."
"We spent the night up on the hill, and as you can imagine, it really started to smell. There was a terrible whiff of sewage as there weren't many toilets. People were very good to each other and the Thais even opened a bar - quite a few people drank the night away, which I think was the only way to get their minds off the tragedy."
"We went back to the resort the next day. The island was shattered. We were eventually rescued by two ferries and a few army boats, and made our way to Krabi."
"We are slowly getting over the disaster. We still struggle to sleep and have had terrible nightmares. I hope they stop soon."
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