I traveled to Haiti to shoot some video for our program at Compassion International. I was returning to my hotel (Hotel Montana) that afternoon. As I entered the lobby, the earthquake hit. The walls shook; the ground beneath me started to move, and within three-seconds everything had collapsed, and I was clenched in darkness.
I realized I had my camera around my neck. I flashed the camera so that I could see into my surroundings. I was in some kind of pocket of space just tall enough for me to partially stand up. The ceiling was against the back of my head, and my glasses had been knocked off, so everything was blurry. I took more pictures, and I was able to see an elevator 20 feet away that was stuck open. I crawled there, and not a minute after, the first aftershock took place, and the space where I had been collapsed.
I realized I had survived an earthquake, but I didn’t know if I would survive beyond that. I pulled up my jeans and saw a deep gash that went from my knee to my ankle. There was yellow, cottage cheese looking stuff coming out. I was bleeding profusely, so I pulled off my shirt and wrapped it around my leg, tying it with some cord I ripped out of the elevator.
I found myself facing the gravity of the situation, and I was fairly certain I would probably die within the coming hours. That brought me to question my life. What would God say to me as I passed through the threshold of death?
I started hearing voices from the people who were trapped around me, and we started yelling to each other. Five Americans were trapped around the front desk, there was a woman by herself, and a Haitian employee in the elevator shaft next to me. Two of the Americans died from their injuries after medical teams amputated their legs to free them from the wreckage.
There was a lot of waiting in darkness. It was very oppressive, as if it were a person. I looked at the reality of the situation, and thought about what I could do for my wife and two young boys. I decided to write notes in my journal for when my body was found. I used the flash of my camera to find an empty page, and then I wrote in the darkness.
I wrote notes to my wife telling her that I never stopped loving her. I wrote notes to my boys:
“I was in a big accident (earthquake). Don’t be upset at God… He always provides for his children, even in hard times. I am still praying that God will get me out. He may not. But he will always take care of you.”
Thursday night, we made contact with a French rescue team. They rescued all the Americans, except for the two who were pinned. They couldn’t get to me either, but they reassured us someone would be coming soon.
Hours seemed to pass.
At a point of complete despair, I crawled out of the elevator, and accepted my fate. I gave up. I was no longer trying to survive. At that moment, I heard a voice from above. A rescuer came down the elevator shaft and said, “I’m here for you—I’m going to get you out of here.”
As they loaded me into the ambulance, the Haitian employee who I’d been trapped with, came over, and we saw each other’s faces for the first time. A Photographer from the LA Times captured that moment, which is featured on the cover of my book. No matter what you believe, when faced with a life-or-death situation, we want to know what comes next. For me, it was more life.
Story by Dan Woolley, as told by Eric J. Leech
Dan (DanWoolley.net) is the Internet Program Marketing Manager for Compassion International, and the author of Unshaken: Rising from the Ruins of Haiti’s Hotel Montana.
About Dr. Eric J. Leech
Eric has written for over a decade. Then one day he created Urbasm.com, a site for every guy.
About Dr. Eric J. Leech