11 days trapped in Haiti

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/haiti/7063228/Haiti-earthquake-survivor-tells-of-11-day-burial-ordeal.html

For Emmanuel Buteau, the moment when he realised that he was not a ghost but still a living human being came when he heard his mother crying out for him.

Trapped for 11 days under the rubble of his Haitian home, he had listened to people above saying there was no chance anyone underneath could have survived so long. Delirious from lack of water, his mind began playing tricks on him, and soon he concluded they must be right. He was dead, he reasoned, and the voice inside him that said otherwise was simply his own ghost.

Then, some time on Friday evening, the voices outside became nearer again - and this time were joined by that of his mother, Marie Yolène Bois de Fer, 46.

"I could hear her voice and then she heard my voice too," said Mr Buteau, who was dragged out from the rubble by an Israeli rescue team. "That's when I believed I may be saved after all. I shouted out "Mama, mama, mama, I'm alive!"

Mr Buteau, who was recovering in a hospital bed last night, now counts himself as the luckiest of all the 130-plus people to be extracted alive from the debris of Haiti's earthquake. He may also be among the last. Rescuers, who described Mr Buteau's case as a "miracle", believe that it is highly unlikely that many more will have survived.

However, there was a new flurry of activity last night as reports swept Port au Prince that six more people had been heard alive in the rubble of a hotel. Rescuers confirmed that they could hear the sound of faint tapping, but did not know how many people were buried underneath.

In an hour-long interview yesterday with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Buteau, a tailor, recounted his extraordinary ordeal and his amazing rescue. He ended up drinking his own urine, he said, but sang hymns to keep his spirits up.

He was at home alone in the family's three storey house in one of Port-au-Prince's poorest areas when the earthquake struck. "I had just removed my clothes to take a bath, then I heard a huge noise. The house was dancing, it was shaking and then it all came falling down," he said.

"I was knocked to the ground. It was completely dark all around. I believe I lost consciousness."

He said when he came to, perhaps a day or two later, he was in pitch darkness, unable to see anything. He was partially trapped under a bed, with collapsed debris around him, and he was lying on his left side.

"I lost hope, I thought I was dead, I really thought maybe I was a ghost, It was black all around. I was confused. Was I alive or not? Anyhow I was resigned to dying. I prayed to God."

A regular churchgoer, he sang an inspirational song about how God saved one of His apostles by sending an eagle to bring him water and food. But neither his singing, nor his shouts for help within his tomb-like confinement appeared to create much hope in the outside world.

"I was calling people but my voiced bounced back," he said. "I could hear them but they could not hear me. Every time I called them they did not respond so I became discouraged. That's when I started to believe I might be a ghost. I could not understand how I could hear them, but they couldn't hear me."

The arrival of the rescue team was partly down to the efforts of his mother, a street vendor who had been living in a refugee camp opposite Port-au-Prince's wrecked presidential palace. She returned to the shattered apartment building on Friday, and was astonished when she heard her son's distant voice. "At that moment, I knew it was possible to save him," she said.

She began frantically alerting everyone she could find – police officers, journalists, aid workers – ans soon help arrived. After cutting through rubble, pieces of furniture, one of the Israelis was finally able to touch his hand. He was eventually dragged out on a blanket looking emaciated, dazed and covered in dust. Rescuers later said that his appearance was so cadaverous that his mother initially thought he had died.

"I pulled him out and he weighed like nothing because he was so thin," said Major Zohar Moshe, 47, an engineer who led the Israeli rescue unit. "Then he was free."

Mr Buteau was then rushed to a nearby Israeli Defence Force field hospital, where his mother and sister were sat at his bedside yesterday. Rescuers said the furniture in his room had collapsed around him in such a way as to protect him from serious injury, and that he may have found water at some point to allow him to survive.

"When I came out, there were a lot of people there, they were all cheering," Mr Buteau added, with a smile. "It was like a big party and my mother was hysterical. She was making a lot of noise, embracing me, hugging me, kissing me all the time. She had been talking about me in the past, as though I was dead."

"While I was trapped I was always thinking about my mother and asked God to protect her. She's getting old and I wondered who is going to take care of her if I am gone. So thank God I'm still here, so I can continue to look after her."

Dr Anat Engel, one of the doctors who treated Mr Buteau said: "It is a miracle. It is amazing that he is still alive. It made us all very happy to see this."

The Haitian government declared the search and rescue phase of the relief operation officially over yesterday. As medical and organisations continued their work, emergency foreign rescue teams began to return home.

Among them were many of the 62 British experts who helped pulled four alive from the rubble, including a two-year-old toddler called Mia trapped for three days in debris.

Onlookers broke into applause as members of the UK International Search and Rescue Team emerged at Gatwick Airport. Search and rescue experts from nine fire brigades took part, along with medics and volunteers.