For 30 hours, Lita Casumlum bobbed in the churning seas. Buoyed by her life jacket, guzzling seawater, her face scorched by a relentless sun, she forced herself to concentrate on her husband and son as she prayed to be rescued.
Her pleas were answered Monday as a Philippines air force helicopter plucked the 39-year-old homemaker to safety -- a day after the Super Ferry 9 sank off the southern coast.
Military gunboats and aircraft swarmed the area along with cargo ships, rescuing all but a handful of the more than 1,000 passengers. Nine are confirmed dead; after Casumlum's rescue, just one is still missing.
"I just prayed and prayed hard that some ships or fishing boats or the navy would rescue me, but there was none," she said Tuesday from her hospital bed. "No ships until I saw the helicopter." Officials called it a miracle that they spotted her orange life vest bobbing in the water about 15 nautical miles from where the ferry sank.
"She was like a dot in the vast blue ocean," said air force Maj. Antonio Mandaue.
The ferry, built in Japan in 1986, left General Santos in the southern Philippines on Saturday, en route to Iloilo City in the central part of the archipelago. Pepito Casumlum, a 40-year-old carpenter, said he was riding below deck with his wife, 7-year-old son and a nephew when they heard a tremendous thud.
The order to abandon ship sent panicked passengers to the railings, where many jumped into the water. Parents lowered children into life rafts. In the madness, Lita Casumlum was separated from her family.
"The sea was so cold. Everything is cold at night and it was so hot during the day," she recalled. "I was hungry and drank seawater only."
Hundreds of survivors were rescued, including Pepito, his son and nephew. But it wasn't until about 1:15 p.m. Monday that a pilot spotted Casumlum.
"I thought she was dead -- she was badly burned by the sun, her face was swollen and she looked bad," Mandaue said. Then she moved.
Rescuers found two small crabs inside her pockets. The crabs had cut her legs, but Casumlum was too cold to feel the pain, officials said.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment